


L$D

by casschad



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Beach Holidays, Canon Universe, Comedy, Crushes, Cute, Day At The Beach, Drinking, Drinking Games, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Funny, He turns 21, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Partying, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Slow Burn, Swearing, They get wasted, but you gotta wait a bit, everyone is struggling with their places in the team, hunk's birthday, i name all of my chapters after songs like flipping degrassi, its kinda getting old tbh, lotor is not part of this, neither is matt, so everyone is older, some people will eventually get it in, they don't actually do lsd btw lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 14:25:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10878675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casschad/pseuds/casschad
Summary: After a particularly bad mission, the gang decides they need a day off. Plus, Hunk is turning 21 soon so they need to turn up (Lance's term). Everyone gets wasted and secrets are revealed, some stupid things go down. It's a nice change from saving the universe. Or so they thought...





	1. You're So Mean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone this is my first fanfic ever so i hope you enjoy... shoutout to my pal (KIASK) who had to edit this who has no idea what voltron is lol. each chapter's tone is set by a song which is also the name of the chapter. i will post links to the songs here:
> 
> https://soundcloud.com/ghost-ramp/12youre-so-mean
> 
> Ages:  
> Shiro= 26  
> Allura= 25  
> Lance, Hunk & Keith = 20  
> Pidge = 16  
> Coran = ????

“FUCK!” Shiro heard himself over the intercom, dominating over everyone else’s screams.

He watched from the head of Voltron, helpless, as the planet they had been fighting for was destroyed by a single massive blast from a Galran ship. The robotic monster they had been battling for the last few minutes was a decoy.

~~~~~~~

 

Five minutes later, the lions were in their individual hampers and the team rushed to meet in the control room for damage control. Shiro walked in first, helmet tucked under his arm. Allura and Coran were facing the window, watching the planet slowly collapse.

“Allura,” Shiro said calmly, causing them to turn around. “Where was our cover?”

She crossed her arms, frowning. “We had a decoy too, Shiro.”

The orange and red explosions coming from outside were creating a halo of light around her white hair.  
Shiro was about to speak when Keith stormed in, followed by Hunk running after him. Keith threw his helmet across the room, causing the shield to crack against the wall.

“WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED?!” he shouted, approaching Shiro and Allura.

Shiro reflexively stuck out his right arm to hold Keith back from getting any closer to Allura. Keith pushed against his arm.

“THERE WERE 8 BILLION PEOPLE ON THAT PLANET, ALLURA!”

“Don’t think I tried with everything I could to stop that ship.” Allura said. “You have no idea what kind of hits the castle was taking, and our communication was spotty.”

“Ours were working fine.” Hunk added from behind.

“What kind of high-tech bullshit is this anyways if it doesn’t even work when we’re a mile away?” Keith seethed.

“What’s a mile?” Coran asked from behind the group.

Pidge and Lance jogged in from the other door. Pidge marched up to Shiro, placing her hands on her hips.

“I told you that we should have broken up Voltron! It was a decoy, I called it!”

“Pidge,” Shiro began, “You were going on minimal evidence-”

“You should have just believed me!”

“I had to make a decision for the team.”

Keith scoffed, “We should have taken the risk.”

“That’s what you would have done,” Lance jumped in, “but we needed to make a decision together. I didn’t even know that Pidge thought it was a decoy-”

Keith crossed the circle to stand directly in Lance’s face, he pointed his index finger into his chest, “Number one: you weren’t even fucking listening to our discussion over the intercom while we were making last minute preparations. Number two: at least I had some input in our plan and wasn’t trying to hook up my iPhone to play that Blue da ba dee song over the speakers. And lastly, Number three: I know that you like to push my buttons for fun, but right now is seriously not a good time for that.”

Lance narrowed his eyes, swatting away Keith’s finger. Hunk stepped in between them, pushing both boys apart.

“Alright. Let’s not get physical.”

Lance wriggled his eyebrows and smirked. “Maybe I want to.”

Keith rolled his eyes as he turned back towards Shiro, Pidge and Allura. Pidge was crying.

“Shiro, you should have trusted me,” she said, “we just destroyed the closest planet we’ve ever found to Earth.”

“We didn’t destroy it!” Shiro’s voice boomed. “They destroyed it.” He thrust his pointed finger towards the window.

“And I don’t want to hear anyone blaming anyone else for what happened! We lost. It happens. Now we can learn from it.”

“But we can’t let this happen!” Keith shouted, “It’s easy to say we lost, but look how many people-er, some kind of people-type-thing died! If we’re defenders of the universe, we can’t lose. We can’t let massive populations be wiped out in an instant!”

“I understand your connection to this planet, paladins,” Allura began, “but you also need to see what Shiro is saying.”

“And what’s that?” Pidge raised an eyebrow.

Shiro sighed. “We’ve never lost in a battle to this extent. It’s extremely devastating. But, from what I’ve learned from my time spent captured, we need to move on from this.”

The room was quiet.

“It just happened!” Lance shrieked. “Ten minutes ago!”

“I’m not saying to just sleep it off and pretend it didn’t happen,” Shiro said, “I mean, fighting about what we should have done will not make the situation any better. We work better as a team, and taking our anger out on each other isn’t going to change the past.”

Keith threw up his hands and groaned. “I don’t need a life lesson right now!” He stomped out of one of the exits heading towards the living quarters.

Lance and Shiro exchanged glances. Keith needed to cool off. He would be unreasonable until he calmed down, they both knew that from experience.

Pidge stared at her feet. “Can we go somewhere else? I don’t want to watch this anymore.”

Allura nodded and turned to the controls.

“But-” Pidge continued, “let’s stay in this galaxy. It reminds me of home.”

The ship sped away from the wreckage of the planet, pushing through space soundlessly.

~~~~~

“If we’re following Earth time, you’re turning 21 tomorrow.” Lance said later that evening, stretched on his bed, ankles crossed and hands behind his head.

“I’m finally legal!” Hunk punched the air.

“Damn. We won’t get to make our first major purchase at the liquor store.” Lance added.

Hunk leaned against the wall opposite Lance’s bed, legs splayed out in front of him. “At least we have gotten drunk on human alcohol before.”

Lance shrugged. “True.”

“There are so many things I wish I brought with me to space.” Hunk said. “And that includes a bottle of Patron.”

Lance giggled. “I feel like after complete shit-show days like today we really need it.”

“Shiro needs it the most.”

“AGREED.” Lance shouted. “That poor guy.”

“I almost want to scour space to find alcohol just for Shiro.”

“I wonder if he ever feels like our babysitter?”

“Probably,” Hunk agreed, “but he’s got Allura and Coran.”

“I guess…” Lance trailed off. He wondered if Shiro ever got bored of being the babysitter of Voltron...

“Tell me if I’m wrong,” Hunk began, “but it seems like you’re not as upset about what happened today as everyone else?”

Lance chewed his lip. “For starters, I’m a bit more used to not being perfect at things than Pidge and Keith. But that’s not to say that I didn’t fuck up extraordinarily. Cause I did. I think we just got a little used to winning the type of battles we’ve faced.”

“Almost three years of the same thing is kind of starting to get old.” Hunk noted.

“Yea,” Lance turned on his side to face Hunk, “which is weird to say considering we’re out saving the universe… but… it’s getting boring, I guess.”

“I know what you mean.” Hunk nodded. “It’s like we’re past the honeymoon phase.”

Lance smiled. “Yea.” He flipped onto his other side to look out the giant window beside his bed. Easily the best part of the whole castle. Right now they were lazily drifting through a galaxy that was doused in hues of purple. Not the kind of purple that Lance associated with Galra. It was a vibrant purple, almost neon. He wished he could send a picture of it to his family. Or post it on Instagram. He just wanted someone else outside of this ship to see the view that he was seeing.

Keith left the training room covered in sweat, muscles aching. He walked to the showers, grabbing a towel at the entrance, excited to feel the weight of today’s events being whooshed away by Altean space water. Where they got the water from- who knows, but it was like magic. It felt better than Earth water on the skin, somehow.

He changed into a version of his usual black t-shirt and black jeans (they had recently found a place that sold close-to versions of human clothing, thank God) and decided to find Shiro.

After a sweep across the entire castle, Shiro was not to be found. Keith assumed that he was probably in Allura’s quarters, where he had been spending some time recently. He didn’t want to venture down that hallway, especially after his outburst today. He needed to apologize to Allura eventually, but appearing in her bedroom out of nowhere probably wasn’t the best idea.

His red lion slippers padded softly along the metal floors, as he tried to decide who he needed to speak to next. He knew Pidge was just as angry as he was about everything, but he really didn’t feel like getting worked up again. Hunk was preparing dinner, and was already in ‘the zone’ most likely. If Keith got in the way in while Hunk was in the kitchen he would get pissy.

He arrived at the door of the bedroom beside his and knocked. It slid open, with no one on the other side.

“Lance?” he asked.

Lance was lying on his bed, watching something on a laptop.

It was a long story how he got this laptop, but essentially Pidge did everything she could to find a few Macbooks and occasionally make long distance connections to Earth’s satellites. It was so she could stay up to date with the latest news, but more importantly, the latest memes.

“I can’t reuse the same ones over and over again,” she explained. “I feel dead inside.”

Whatever the fuck that meant, Keith went along with it because they could watch more Earth movies than what they had before.

“I like your slippers.” Lance said.

Keith walked over to his bed and perched on the end. Lance shut the computer and drifted his eyes up to him.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I’m sorry for saying you did nothing to help today,” Keith began, “I know you were just trying to get us pumped up for battle by playing your ‘fighting Galra scum’ playlist.”

“It’s fine, Keith.”

Keith tucked his legs under him, leaning against the wall at the end of the bed. He wanted to apologize for always attacking Lance first out of everyone, even when Lance really did nothing to get him angry in the first place. But he didn’t know if Lance was over their stupid ‘rivalry’ enough to understand that. He still worried that anything he said would give Lance the impression that he was challenging him.

But it also hadn’t happened in a long time… if anything Lance now made fun of himself for conceiving this one-sided rivalry. Keith always laughed along… but he was curious as to what made him start it. They had never spoken about it, Keith wondered if it was because Lance was embarrassed and wanted to move on. He was just happy that Lance realized that there were more important issues than why Shiro chose Keith to go first in their flight exercises and not Lance on days off.

“What are you watching?” Keith asked, after a moment of silence passed.

“Porn.”

“Okay, it looked like a Disney movie so that’s really fucked up.”

Lance laughed. “I thought it would be a good cover. I was watching Tangled.”

“It was a terrible cover. And that’s really cute.”

“I know. I’m so cute.” Lance blushed.

“How come every time I say something nice to you, you ruin it?”

“You cut me off!” Lance whined. “I was going to continue with: ‘just kidding, I’m watching it because the story is great and it reminds me of my sisters.’ It’s ‘cause you have no patience.”

Keith shrugged. “Yea, I don’t.”

“Wow, you agreed with me.”

“Hey. We’re getting older. Arguing with you about every little thing is getting boring.” Keith crossed his arms and looked out the window.

Lance sighed. “I do understand that I contributed to what went wrong today. I appreciate you coming to apologize to me, but that’s not to say that everything I did was perfect.”

“Me too.” Keith began, “I launched my helmet across the control room.”

Lance smiled. He reached across the bed and squeezed the lion head of one of Keith’s slippers. “It sucks to lose, doesn’t it?”

“I’m not used to it.” Keith admitted.

“I know.”

“So many people died.”

“Yea.”

Keith huffed. “It’s not right.”

“It’s really messed up. It’s not fair. We’re the good guys, we don’t deserve this. Think of what Shiro said though.”

“We can’t go back and change it.” Keith said sadly.

“It’s what we have to accept as people who ‘defend’ the universe. The stakes are ridiculously high. Too high for us to comprehend sometimes. At the end of the day, we’re just a bunch of young people from Earth doing everything we can to help others. Did you try the best you could?”

Keith frowned. “That question makes you sound like you’re talking to a toddler.”

“I am.” Lance smirked. He put his hands up, surrendering when Keith launched forward at him. “I’m just kidding!” he shouted.

“I tried the best I could.” Keith pouted.

“Then that’s all you could do.” Lance said. He shuffled closer to Keith, placing both of his hands on either of Keith’s knees. “There’s no point in beating yourself up over something you can’t change.”

Keith continued to pout, looking out the window to avoid the intense eye contact Lance was making. “How are you the mature one in this situation?”

“You underestimate me sometimes.”

Keith turned back to face Lance, noticing the purple light shining from outside reflecting in his wide pupils. He suddenly felt very close to him. His normally blue eyes were dark, lids drooping.

Oh boy. This was taking a very quick turn. Purple is a good colour on him. Keith had to say something before he got carried away in the moment. He felt his cheeks flush. It couldn’t escalate. Not with Lance. Didn’t Lance hate him? Or like… just tolerate him? What the hell is going on? Keith was getting himself worked up and needed to leave. This was overwhelming. He shot up and ran towards the door. He yelled the only excuse he could think of in the moment:

“Uh- sorry! I forgot I- uh…. My jacket… in… the shower?”

The door whooshed shut as Keith ran away. He needed to get to whatever the opposite point in the castle was from Lance’s room.

He found a vent big enough for him to squeeze in, crawled for a bit then collapsed. Did he just overthink the situation? Was Lance just being nice? Was something actually about to happen? Too many questions were running through his mind. This is what he got for having next to no experience in relationships.

This is why I hate having downtime. No one knows what to do with themselves. Weird shit happens. Secrets get uncovered... It’s not fun.

When his breathing finally slowed down, he realized how small the vent he crawled into was. Why the hell did I crawl into a vent? He surprised himself with the stupid stuff he did when he was overthinking and anxiety took over his body. He shifted closer to the exit, taking in the fresh air. There was no way he could leave though, he was not ready to feel that exposed.

_Lance was getting hotter with age._ The thought creeped into his mind.

He frowned. It was so true in the most annoying way possible. Lance used to be tall and lanky, but now everything was turning into muscle. He jawline had become more defined, any remaining baby fat disappearing. His skin was so beautiful, from his face to every other inch of his body… oh no. Keith needed to stop.

Lance had figured out how to get into the pool and was swimming a lot more. He said it grounded him, cleared his mind during stressful times. Keith didn’t swim much but he figured Lance would be able to teach him some basic stuff to do if he got bored of practising in the training deck. He ended up struggling to focus, being completely distracted by one of the rare opportunities to see Lance’s body close to naked. It changed a lot since he saw it last. His shoulders were wider, the ‘v’ peeking out above his swim trunks looked so good…

Keith slammed his fist against the metal wall of the vent. _I am so gay._

He wanted to analyze everything that had happened in Lance’s room, but realized that there were other things he needed to deal with first.

_This situation is too confusing. I’m going to leave it for right now and maybe come back to it later… there’s no rush to deal with it. It’s not like I can even confirm that Lance was like, ‘making a move’ or whatever._

With those final thoughts, he went to open the vent. Hunk’s voice boomed over the sound system:

  
“Dinner is served, everyone! Please come and join me as soon as you can!”

  
Despite the awful and strange day, Keith knew that dinner was going to be amazing.

The last one to arrive was Pidge, who admitted she had ‘fallen asleep on her keyboard’. She took the seat beside Keith.  
Allura was sitting at the head of the table, hands clasped. Her posture perfect as always.

  
“I’m very excited to try something that is similar to Earth food.” she said, smiling.

  
“Me too.” Lance said sarcastically. “I would give my right testicle for a pizza.”

  
Shiro banged his fist on the table. “Jesus, Lance! Don’t say that word. I hate the sound of it.”

  
“Okay. I would give my ball sack for a pizza.” Lance repeated.

  
Keith rolled his eyes.

  
“Nothing about balls, _please._ ” Shiro groaned. “We haven’t even been served yet.”

  
_How the fuck did I think this guy was getting more mature?_ Keith asked himself.

  
“Testicles really is an awful word.” Pidge added.

  
“I think clitoris is worse.” Lance said.

  
Pidge nodded. “It’s pretty bad too. Just doesn’t flow well.”

  
“Thank you for your analysis,” Shiro said. “But can we stop now?”

“One of my favourite words to say is anus.” Lance continued, ignoring Shiro. “Anus, anus, anus, anus.”

  
As Shiro grew even more irritated, Allura looking very uncomfortable and Pidge banging on the table cheerfully- Keith couldn’t help but start to giggle. The way stupid Lance was saying the word anus. So nasally. Why did it sound funny? It made no sense.

  
Keith put his hand over his mouth, trying to hold in the giggle. But it just got worse the more Lance and Pidge said it. His felt his face heat up. Suddenly, a cackle escaped and he couldn’t stop from there. His laughter echoed in the halls, causing Lance and Pidge to shout it louder and louder.

  
Shiro banged his head on the table, while Allura rubbed his back. She was also holding back a smile.

  
Keith wiped away tears, his stomach aching. He made eye contact with Lance, whose grin beamed back at him.

  
Coran walked in holding a dish, followed by Hunk. The room began to quiet down.

  
“Is there not a planet in your solar system called Anus?” Coran asked.

  
Everyone, including Shiro, bursted into laughter.

  
“Close.” Lance said.

  
“Whatever it is, here is your dinner!” Coran placed the plate adorned with food in the centre of the table. “Beats me what half of this stuff is, but I’m happy you guys were able to gather some things that remind you of home.”

  
Keith looked up from the dish to see Lance quickly averting his eyes from him. He rested his chin in his hand as he watched Lance take a sip from his glass of water. He was trying so hard to pretend that he didn’t notice Keith watching him. His ears turned a shade of red. Keith smirked. He was so cute. So fucking immature sometimes, but so endearing.

  
_Oh yea… I wasn’t going to think about him for a bit._ Keith reminded himself. That ended quickly.

Hunk brought out dessert, which was a ‘space version’ of chocolate lava cakes. No one said a word as they devoured their individual cakes, the chocolate flavour rich, and very missed amongst the Earthlings.

  
Allura gasped when liquid chocolate emerged from the centre. “This is so cool! How does it not get cooked?”

  
“It’s a secret!” Hunk said.

  
“So Hunk…” Coran began, “I heard from someone that tomorrow is your Earth birthday?”

  
“It is!” Hunk cheered.

  
“Anything special you want to do?” Allura chimed in.

  
“As long as I get to spend it with you guys, I’m happy.” Hunk said, cheeks turning pink.

  
Shiro placed his fork down with a clang. “Allura and I were talking about how we should take the day to relax. Especially after the last mission.”

  
“I was actually going to suggest that.” Pidge added. “There’s a few planets close to here that are very similar to Earth. Something about this galaxy… the sun must be the same size and density as ours. Anyways, if there’s one that’s not too inhabited maybe we could visit?”

  
Lance jumped up from his chair, punching the air with fork still in hand. “Beach day!”

  
Pidge raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure there are a lot of technicalities before we can actually swim in an unidentified water source, but-”

  
“It’ll be fine.” Lance waved, “What’s the worst that can happen?”

  
Everyone else exchanged glances.

  
“Don’t ruin this for me.” Lance said.

  
“We’ll call it a beach day.” Shiro leaned back in his chair, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr: bossybinch hmu 4 a good time  
> also sorry for the messy formatting lol im figuring it out


	2. Jamaica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> fluffy cute beach day y'all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjoCAu8HPMw
> 
> notes from me and my amazing editor at the end

 

Pidge worked with Allura and Coran to figure out the perfect planet to visit for the day. Most of the planets in this galaxy were inhabited by peaceful populations, but the day was meant to be spent between just the seven of them so they wanted to avoid any world-saving related duties.

They settled on a planet called Guania, which was covered mostly with salt-water and small island chains. The climate at the planet’s equator was almost identical to any tropical climate back on Earth, making it the perfect beach destination. 

The ship landed at the peak of a larger island, overlooking the turquoise water.

“This reminds me of our spot of Arus” Allura says, making some last minute adjustments to the ship’s position.

Lance jumps from his control panel, already wearing his swim trunks. “Canwegonowpleeeeeease?!”

“Just wait-” Allura chides, “Let me put on the parking brake-”

“The what?!” Lance shouts. “Parking brake?! Are you shitting me?! That’s hilarious!”

“What’s so funny-” Allura begins, getting cut off before things escalated.

“It’s so no one can come in and take over the controls,” Shiro says. “It’s a different thing than what it means on Earth.”

“Could you imagine, the castle begins sliding down the hill and it’s cause Allura forgot to switch on the parking brake?” Hunk asks, giggling.

Lance’s laughter picks up.

Shiro rests his head in his hand, “Christ.” he says quietly.

 

The rule was that when everyone was assembled by the exit, they would open the gate and approach the outside slowly. Even though there were no real threats, Allura needed everyone to be accounted for. Keith was the last to arrive, swim trunks on and slathered in Altean sunscreen. Lance, Hunk, and Pidge were practically bouncing off the walls with excitement. They had been on another Earth-like planet just yesterday, but they hadn't had an opportunity to relax and play around on account of it having been destroyed. The last time anyone had been to a beach was back on Earth. 

The gate drops slowly bringing in fresh, warm air. The sun beams down on the grass, reflecting heat back onto the Paladins. It was the kind of heat that could not be artificially created by the Castle. This was the kind of warmth that brought every cell alive, melting deep into the skin. It wrapped you up and made you feel like home.

“I’ve missed this so much.” Lance whispers.

Hunk nods slowly. 

“I’m a little worried for my skin.” Pidge says, pouring an entire bottle of sunscreen all over herself.

“The Altean sunscreen should work just fine,” Coran says. “I’ve never once been burnt by a sun while wearing it.”

“Well... We can’t just stand here all day, I guess.” Allura says, sporting an oversized shirt covering her one-piece bathing suit. 

She steps out of the Castle. Jumps up and down. Nothing happens.

“Seems safe to me.” She says, smiling up at the Paladins.

Lance sprints towards the beach. “COME ON HUNK LET’S GO SEE HOW WARM THE WATER IS!”

Hunk takes off after him. Pidge heads towards the small forested area in the centre of the island. 

“I’m going to look around for cool stuff.” She says vaguely.

“Be safe!” Allura and Shiro call at the same time. They whip their heads to face each other and grin.

Keith cringes. “Gross.” He heads towards the beach, not waiting for a reaction.

 

A few hours after lunch, Keith watches Lance collapse on his towel for the first time all day, exhausted.

Keith is sitting on his towel a couple feet away, looking at the shells and stones he had dove deep in the water for. They had a variety of jewel tones, rivaling the pastel coloured shells and gray rocks from Earth. It was worth holding his breath for a long time, each piece a unique shape and size. One was an oval-shaped fuchsia colour, the other a yellow L-shape. His favourite was a deep purple, flat, rectangular stone that was spattered with red and white dots. It looked like a galaxy.

“Can I see your collection?” Lance asks from his towel, shielding his eyes with his hand.

Keith nods, smiling softly.

Lance sits at the other end of Keith’s towel, crossing his legs. “These are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. They remind me of jewels.”

“This is one of my favourite parts about travelling space.” Keith started, “other than kicking Galra ass, and beating up giant monsters.”

Lance smiles, running his hand over the ridges of the L-shaped shell. “What’s that?”

“Collecting things that remind me of all of the planets we visit.” 

“Do you really have something from every planet we’ve visited?” Lance asks.

“Mostly. Unless we didn’t have a lot of time.” Keith responds.

“Can I see it someday?”

“Yea.”

Lance reaches for the purple one. “This is incredible.”

“It’s my favourite.”

Lance rubs his thumb over the smooth front, flipping the stone over and over, transfixed on it.

“It reminds me of something.” Lance says.

“Looks like a galaxy to me.” 

“Yea…” Lance trails off, eventually setting it back down on the towel. He reaches for a blue one and holds it up to his face, grinning.

“Me.” he claims.

“It’s the same colour as your eyes.” Keith notes.

“Is it?” Lance looks at the shell, then widens his eyes in an attempt to see his own pupils. “I need a mirror.”

Keith reaches for the shell and holds it beside Lance’s face. He leans on his knees so he can get closer to compare the details of the rock with Lance’s eyes.

“Both are a perfect blue. Both have flecks of turquoise.” He notices his face is only a few inches away from Lance, who is looking back at him with a relaxed smile. 

Wow he wants to kiss him. 

_ Backtrack. Backtrack. Backtrack. _

“Both look dead inside.” Keith deadpans.

“Hey!” Lance knocks the shell out of Keith’s hand. “You ruined a nice moment!”

“How the tables have turned.” Keith says, grinning.

“Yea, that’s  _ my  _ thing!” Lance exclaims. “You can’t take that from me!”

“Too late.” Keith plops back down on the towel.

Lance picks up a nearby stone and throws it at him.

“Ouch!” Keith whines. He looks for Shiro along the beach. “DAAAAAAD Lance threw a rock at me!”

Lance scoffs. “You little shit!” He launches himself towards Keith, stopping himself as Keith begins to yell at him: “Don’t crush the shells!”

Lance peers down, hovering over the shells. “Yea, that would be a dick move, wouldn’t it?”

Keith nods, watching Lance lower himself back to sitting cross-legged. 

“What did you get from the Olkari planet?” Lance asks, already moving on.

“I pressed some leaves and flowers.” Keith says, arranging the shells by colour.

“That’s so cute!” Lance coos. “I would have thought like… a twig, or something.”

Keith chuckles. “You gotta get creative. I want to like, remember the way the planet smelled or felt, or… whatever.”

Lance’s smile towards him widens. He was grinning at him, eyes bulged a little bit. 

“What?” Keith asks, grinning. “You look like a psycho.”

“I-I just… uh…” Lance pushes his hand through his wet hair. “Um…” He sighs. “Can I find you some more shells for your collection?”

Keith nods. “I would love that.”

Lance shoots up and sprints back towards the water. “I’m going deep, boys!”

Keith rolls his eyes, smiling. What an idiot.

 

The sun was getting close to the horizon, setting perfectly over the spread of beach that everyone had been playing on all day. The water is calm, lapping against the shore softly. There are two moons high in the sky, both much larger than Earth’s moon and reflecting pink light onto Guania. 

Everyone is sitting on their respective blankets and towels, enjoying the last few moments of the sun. They are all pretty quiet, tired from the activities of the day. Keith notices Allura curling up to Shiro, Hunk and Pidge chatting quietly about the weird plants in the jungle behind them, and Coran who is mysteriously MIA. 

Keith spreads out on his sandy towel, arms behind his head. He feels himself dozing off until Lance appears out of nowhere with his iPod, quickly snapping a picture of him before Keith can react. 

Keith covers his face with his arms. “Lance! Why do you need a picture of me sleeping on the beach?”

“Why  _ don’t  _ I need that?”

Keith clumsily kicks sand at him. “I probably have like eight chins.”

“No you don’t! See?” Lance pushes Keith over on his towel so he can sit down with him. “You look like a tiny sleeping bunny.”

Keith frowns. “I’m not tiny! I’m only, like, two inches shorter than you!”

“Yea. Tiny.”

Keith groans, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“I’m just kidding, you know?” Lance says. “Why are you getting mad?”

“I guess… I’m just, I don’t know… I’m not used to people calling me ‘tiny’ or ‘cute’ and my first instinct is to get mad and defensive.” Keith blushes.

“That’s your first instinct for everything.”

Keith pouts a little. “I hate it when you call me out on my shit.”

Lance smirks, “I’m the only one who does it.”

“Would I be out of control if at least one of you didn’t say anything?” Keith jokes.

Lance leans back on one arm, closing the distance a little more between him and Keith. “You’re already out of control.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Fuck off.”

Lance smiles coyly. “Do you  _ actually _ hate when I call you out?”

Keith sighs. “I used to. But now it helps me realize when I’m being an ass.,” He turns to see Lance’s profile. “...and I appreciate it.”

Lance turns to face him. “Good. I appreciate your honesty.”

Why was it so easy to open up to Lance? It’s not like they went out of their way to have deep conversations about themselves, it just kind of happened. Keith never did that with anyone else, ever. He hated opening up to people, but for some reason Lance made it easy and painless. Keith was able to make fun of himself and see his faults, and Lance would occasionally make a stupid comment, but he was always kind and supportive.

But Keith was pretty sure Lance had this connection with everyone else too, he wasn’t special. It’s just the way Lance was. For a second, Keith wished he could have it all to himself. Lance made him feel like he was the only one on Guania. Having all of Lance’s attention on him was the best feeling. 

He hears the sound of a picture being taken. Lance’s iPod lense was right in his face. He pouts again.

“Come on, Keith!” Lance cries, “I just took a picture of you smiling!”

“Fine. You can keep it. But can I see your iPod?”

Lance narrows his eyes, passing it over. “Don’t delete anything.”

Keith holds up the camera to face them. While Lance poses, smiling, Keith gives him a surprise kiss on the cheek and snaps the picture. 

Lance is quiet, eyes huge and staring at him. Keith ignores Lance and looks at the picture, proud of himself.  _ Take that Lance.  _

The picture shows them almost out of the frame, with most of the jungle in focus. He laughs.

“Yea, I suck at taking pictures, I guess.”

Lance blushes. “That’s okay.”

Keith holds up the iPod to take a couple of pictures of the sky. It was a dazzling pink and purple, the sun now touching the horizon. 

“This is one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen.” Keith admits. “I wish Earth’s moon was pink.”

“Yea this makes Earth’s sunsets seem lame.” Lance adds. “But I guess what really makes the sunset is who you are with. Right guys?” He raises his voice at the end, looking over to the other four.

“Oh my god.” Keith says under his breath. What a nerd.

Shiro and Allura break away from each other. “What?” They both ask.

Pidge and Hunk are gone, along with their towels.

“What the hell?” Lance says, “Were you guys about to go to bone city?”

“What’s bone city?” Allura looks between Shiro and Keith, confused. 

Shiro rolls his eyes, “No, Lance. We were not about to go to bone city. If we were going to bone city, it would not be right beside you two.” He smirks, a lightbulb turning on, “Were you and Keith about to go to ‘bone city’?”

Lance stands up. “Fine, Shiro. You got me there.” He huffs, storming his way back up to the Castle. They all watch him march up the hill, approaching Hunk- who was putting together a bonfire.

“Was that a yes or a no?” Shiro asks Keith.

Keith shakes his head slowly. “Beats me.”

“You’re good for each other.” Shiro says. “I don’t know where you guys stand, but I think you’re both starting to see that.”

“How am I ‘good for’ Lance?” Keith inquires, “I don’t do anything for him.”

“That’s not true.” Shiro says. “You don’t notice how different he acts around you.”

“To be honest, I thought everyone got that treatment.” Keith replies. 

“You need to give yourself more credit.” Allura joins in. 

Shiro nods. “You are more than a talented pilot and fighter, you know.”

Keith feels like crying. How did the conversation end up at this point? He feels like he is being lectured by his parents. Why was everyone digging deep into his soul today? Like, why just today? Was there something weird going on in Guania’s air?

“Do you think he… feels the same way?” Keith asks, voice just above a whisper.

“Probably.” Allura says. 

“Who knows? Only one way to find out.” Shiro claims. 

“It will literally  _ ruin _ Voltron if he doesn’t.” Keith states.

“Well…” Shiro began, “You took a risk taking on Zarkon on your own, you took a risk in the Trials of Marmora… this is nothing compared to those.”

“It’s so way more different! This has to do with… emotions! Ugh!” Keith throws himself face down onto his towel. He knew he was being a drama queen, but something about talking with Shiro and Allura brought out the angsty teenager in him again. Just when he thought he was over that phase...

“I’m sorry,” Allura interjects, “Shiro, ‘bone city’ means something sexual, right?”

“It does.” Shiro says quietly.

“Okay.” She replies. She didn’t want to know anymore about it.

“Keith.” Shiro sounds stern all of a sudden, “If you do want to go to ‘bone city’ with Lance, you know you need some stuff to stay safe, right?”

Keith felt his whole body turn tomato red. He stands up, grabs his towel, shells and rocks and walks towards the Castle. “Too much for me. Too much today. I need a moment to myself.” 

He needs to hide until dinner. He did not want to talk about sex with Shiro and Allura, more importantly,  _ sex with Lance _ . Firstly, Lance needed to like him back, and that was a huge question mark. Secondly, Keith had to be naked in front of Lance. No freaking way. Thirdly, where the hell do you get lube and stuff in  _ space _ ? He didn’t think of grabbing some on Earth because getting laid wasn’t exactly the first thing on his mind. He never got some at any of the space malls they visited, because, once again, he was not thinking about going to fucking  _ bone city _ . Well… maybe more recently he was thinking about it, but he didn’t think it would actually happen. 

His mind was racing, not even noticing Hunk, Lance and Pidge working on a now-massive bonfire as he ran past them. 

“What the hell are you running from?” Pidge shouts after him.

He wanted to shout “My emotions!” like a dramatic child, but instead spit out: “I… uh… have to talk to Red.”

He storms up what felt like millions of flights of stairs, out of breath when he gets to his room. The whole Castle felt cold, stinging his bare feet. He already missed the sun.

His door slides open, and he plops down on the bed. He needs to get back to neutral before he becomes overwhelmed. He planned to take a moment before dinner, gather his thoughts, organize his collection to make room for his new treasures, and then rejoin everyone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more to come... they get wasted next chapter and it was very fun to write so expect that hopefully soon. thank you so much for leaving all of the kudos and comments it is very encouraging along with my undying love for klance and voltron lol. im cosplaying allura for Anime North in two weekends and i SLAVED over the flippin jumpsuit so check out my instagram for pics if interested, i would also be willing to give tips for others who are interested in making the jumpsuit just message me on instagram! it's @cassssc  
> whew okay sorry for the novel... here's a note from my lovely editor:
> 
> KIASK here,
> 
> I hope everyone has been enjoying this fic so far. It’s our first time so please, go easy on us. It’s really Cass who deserves all the credit, I just edit the thing (fluffing it up here and there). Cheers.
> 
> If you wanna yell @ me:  
> Twitter: @sopeonawhim  
> Tumblr: catchmeadragon.tumblr.com


	3. Coming Up For Air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (watch out this song is really loud)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCKZMCVw7C0

Keith returned to the bonfire outside an hour later after having changed into his usual clothes. It had cooled down quite a bit once the sun went away. Although, the fire was warm enough that he didn’t need his jacket. He also realized there weren’t many tiny bugs on Guania, as there was nothing annoying buzzing around him. Was this place really  _ that _ perfect? Something must be wrong with it somewhere.

The orange flames were striking against the navy blue and pink sky. It’s colour reflected in the faces of all of the Paladins and Allura as they watched Hunk roast some unknown object. Dinner maybe?

“Keith! Where’d you go for so long?” Hunk asks innocently.

Keith’s nostrils flare, and he glances over towards Shiro. “I had a… nap.”

Lance avoids eye contact with him, shoving a stick in the fire for no apparent reason.

“Something strange must have happened on the beach, because Lance seemed to be just as distraught as you!” Pidge says mockingly.

Keith grimaces. He wants to let Pidge know he isn’t afraid to punch a sixteen year old, but he knows Shiro would go into Super Dad™  mode.

“Everything is peachy.” Keith says as calmly as he could.

“Great!” Pidge exclaims, “We saved you a spot!” She pats the ground between herself and Lance.

Keith walks over slowly. Clearly, Lance is uncomfortable with any mention of them being anything other than friends/ex-rivals. There was no way he could ever approach him now about how he was feeling, and it would likely end in a disaster.

He sits down cross-legged, and watches Lance poke the fire with a stick.

“Is there a point to doing that?” He feels the question slip out.

“No.”

“Okay.” Keith decides to see what Pidge is doing on his other side.

She’s grinning at him.

“Please don’t look at me like that, Pidge.” He says, scrunching his face up a little.

She starts laughing. “I’ve waited three years for this bullshit to end. I’m so excited.”

Keith frowns. “What? What the hell is going on?” He peers up at Hunk, who is staring into the fire. “Did you guys smoke something while I was away? Was it something off Guania? Cause that might be a bad idea...”

“Everything’s cool.” Hunk begins. “In fact, this drama needs to end right now. Because I want to enjoy the last few hours of my birthday the best I can.”

“How so?” Shiro asks. “We could sing some songs… play a board game? I dunno… watch a movie?”

“There are not many activities we can do, Hunk, unfortunately.” Allura sounds a bit sad. “We shouldn’t go off in the jungle while it’s dark, it’s not safe.”

Lance suddenly stands up with a burst of energy. “Hunk is right! We need to have a good time!”

“Last time we tried to do that, we made a shot-for-shot remake of the  _ I Believe in a Thing Called Love _ music video.” Pidge adds. “I can’t hold the iPod while Lance reshoots his scene like eight hundred times again. It’s not fun.”

“You’re a bad camera operator!” Lance shoots back.

“Then don’t make me hold the camera!” Pidge shouts.

“We should do shrooms.” Hunk says.

Pidge, Lance and Keith look over to Shiro for his reaction. His face is surprisingly neutral. 

“Are those some kind of psychedelic drugs humans use?” Allura asks.

“Yea.” Lance laughs. He turns to Hunk, “I don’t think there are any of those here, dude.”

“Well… I have the longest list of things to pick up if we ever do a drop-in on Earth.” Hunk says.

“One time, when I was living alone in the desert, I ate some weird mushrooms and woke up twelve hours later outside the Garrison.” Keith adds. 

The rest of the group goes quiet, looking back at him in confusion.

“Just thought you should know.”

Lance nods. “Alright. Well, maybe there’s something in the forest, or… something.”

“We are not eating random plants from this unknown planet to try to get the same effect as  _ shrooms _ ,” Shiro steps in. “because I bet you anything, one of you will die. Or maybe spend the next five years in a healing pod.”

“But if this planet is close enough to Earth… maybe it won’t harm us to  _ that _ extreme.” Pidge mentions.

“We are  _ not _ doing shrooms.” Shiro says. “What if the Galra attacked us in the middle of the night?”

“You’re sucking the fun out of this evening, Shiro!” Lance cries. “Hunk is turning 21! We need to get fucked up in  _ some _ way! You  _ have _ to do that when you turn 21!”

Shiro lets out an audible sigh, thinking for a moment. “That’s true. I guess I had a pretty wild night when I turned 21.”

“Oh my god! What happened?” Hunk asks.

“It’s a long story…”

“Okay, did it end with you shit-faced doing something completely stupid?” Lance asks excitedly.

“Yes.”

“That’s what  _ we _ need to do!” Lance starts bouncing up and down. “We need ideas!”

“There’s actually this fermented Altean syrup that has a pretty dangerous alcohol content…” Allura begins, “We might have some on the ship… it tastes good mixed with juice.”

Lance grins at Hunk, “Dangerous?”

“-Alcohol!?” Hunk finishes his thought.

“I think we’ve got ourselves the beginning of a sick ass party.” Lance says. “I’m making a drinking game. Pidge- set up the common area for a turn up time. Allura- hook up my sick tunes. Shiro and Keith- decorate the place with anything you can.”

 

~

 

Keith found some old balloons in the storage area of the castle. They were from Allura’s first birthday- with a printed picture of cute, baby Allura on the front and back. It was weird to see that non-humans celebrated birthdays the same weird ways they did. 

He and Shiro are sitting on the couches in the common room, blowing up as many balloons as they can and throwing them around. Pidge and Lance had gone searching for a piece of paper and a pencil- which, for some reason, were very hard to come by. Allura and Hunk were in the control room trying to find a way to hook up an AUX cord to Altean technology. It wasn’t going well.

Coran walks in with a jug of orange liquid sloshing around. “It’s as if I could read your minds, Paladins, I was looking for this all day. I figured it would be a nice way to celebrate.”

“Where did you find it?” Keith asks.

“Under the sink in my bathroom, oddly enough.” Coran says. “I’ll go and throw this together with some juices so it tastes extra delicious.”

“He’s making jungle juice?” Shiro raises an eyebrow. “I hope he doesn’t kill us.”

“I’ve never really… gotten drunk before.” Keith admits a bit sheepishly. “I was too busy… well.. You know.”

“Just don’t overdo it.” Shiro says, giving Keith a pat on the shoulder. “Don’t let the others pressure you into drinking more than your limit.”

“None of us know our limit with this stuff, though.” Keith mentions.

“True.” 

There was a brief moment of silence before Keith decided to completely flip the subject.

“Do you know why Pidge was acting so weird at the bonfire earlier?”

“No idea.” Shiro says, a bit too quickly.

Dammit. It seemed like everyone was on the same page except for him. They were all hiding something. Maybe when everyone else got super wasted he could ask them what the hell was going on.

“It seems like everyone is acting weird around me.” Keith continues to push. What did he have to lose?

“Why don’t we just enjoy Hunk’s birthday tonight, and talk about it in the morning.” 

“Ugh! Fine.” Keith throws a balloon over his shoulder as aggressively as a balloon can be thrown, pouting in frustration as it floats gracefully to the floor. 

Lance skips into the room, followed by Pidge. “I found a piece of paper!”

“Good for you.” Shiro says, deadpan.

“What kind of drinking game are we playing?” Keith asks.

“So many options.” Lance says, dropping down on the couch beside him.

“How about beer pong?” Pidge suggests.

“We will  _ die _ if we play beer pong… it’s like playing beer pong with vodka.” Shiro says.

“That’s the point, Shiro, duh!” Lance writes ‘beer pong’ down on the piece of paper.

The speakers in all corners of the room suddenly come to life, blasting Ke$ha.

“The AUX cord works great!” Lance shouts.

“Ke$ha is kinda outdated…” Pidge begins, “How old are the songs on your party playlist?”

“Everything from the eighties to just before we left and whatever else I’ve managed to download when we have a good enough connection to Earth.” Lance beams.

“I guess we’ve probably missed out on a bit…” Pidge replies, trying to hide the mild disapproval in her voice.

“I’ve got an idea for a drinking game” Keith cuts in, not paying attention to the conversation, “We should take a shot for every selfie on Lance’s iPod.”

Pidge bursts out laughing. “Jesus. We would be dead in about five minutes.”

Lance shoves Keith’s shoulder. “How about we do a shot every time you frown or roll your eyes.”

Keith frowns, rolling his eyes.

“HA!” Pidge squeals. 

“How about we do a shot every time Lance tries to fight me for no reason.” Keith retorts.

“Do a shot every time you’re the only idiot that tries to fight me back.” Lance hisses.

Pidge rolls her eyes. “Dammit! I thought this was almost done!”

Shiro squeezes himself between Lance and Keith on the couch. “No fighting until Hunk is 21.” He puts an arm over each of their shoulders. “I believe in you.”

“I’m gonna do a shot every time their sexual tension gets in the way of fun events.” Pidge mutters just barely loud enough to hear.

“You’re only sixteen!” Keith shrieks. “You’re not even legal!”

“I would consider space as international waters, therefore, I can do whatever I want.” Pidge says matter-of-factly.

Keith spins around to give Shiro a pleading look.

Shiro shrugs. “I started going to parties and drinking when I was sixteen, so all I can say is, Pidge: know your limit. Same goes for everyone though.”

“Can we start drinking now?” Lance asks the group. 

Shiro gets up and does a half-sprint towards the kitchen, in search of Coran and the Altean alcohol.

“I feel like Shiro needs this the most.” Lance says after he’s out of sight.

Keith chuckles softly, while Pidge claims the piece of paper outlining their drinking game rules. She hunches over it like Gollum with the Ring, refusing to let anyone come near her while she comes up with a highly detailed set of rules to follow. 

 

~

 

Everyone is circled around the big common area table, with a variety of cups and a massive punch bowl in the middle. Coran fills the cups up one by one, passing them around to each of the Paladins and Allura. He was the ‘drink master’ (an Ancient Altean term, apparently) and would only mix the drinks and watch. Someone needs to stay sober in the case of an emergency.

Keith takes a sniff of the mixture. It smells vaguely like lemonade.

Lances stands up, holding his cup up high. “Before we start the game, I would first like to wish Hunk the happiest of twenty-first birthdays. Hunk, you are easily the kindest, sweetest, nicest guy on the Voltron team, and you deserve the entire galaxy. I love you, pal.”

Hunk blushes, standing up to give Lance a side hug. “Aw, you’re the best.”

They all raise their glasses and take their first sips of the night.

“This doesn’t taste like alcohol.” Hunk says. “It’s tastes like… a lemon slushie or something?”

“You mean, lemonade?” Keith asks.

“No.”

Keith furrows his eyebrows. Lemon slushies don’t even exist… but, okay. 

“So Pidge, what is this game you have created?” Allura asks.

Pidge places her helmet on the table, she had filled it with folded pieces of paper. “Draw a piece of paper. Do what it says. If you don’t do it, you need to take two shots.”

“I am so worried for what some of the papers say.” Lance says nervously. 

Hunk nods. “Pidge, you’re going to ruin our lives tonight, aren’t you?”

Pidge smiles wickedly. “Who wants to go first?”

“Birthday boy gets to choose!” Lance shouts.

“Uh… okay.” Hunk scans around the table. “Shiro.” 

Shiro doesn’t hesitate. He pulls a paper out of the helmet, unfolds it and reads it, keeping a neutral face. “Make a sex noise.”

The table explodes in laughter. Even Coran is giggling at the prospect of Shiro having to do something so out of character.

“I will gladly take two shots instead of doing that.” he sighs, reaching for his glass.

“Dammit!” Lance pounds his fist on the table. “That would have been amazing. Can I just make a sex noise? I do a good one…”

“Please. No, Lance.” Hunk presses his hand against Lance’s chest. “I heard enough of your sex noises at the Garrison.” He turned to the rest of the table, “And not like it’s cause he was having sex, he just made sex noises at the most inappropriate times.”

Keith feels his face flush. Even if Lance started making joking sex noises, he might need to leave. He was out of control.

“Allura’s turn!” Pidge says.

Allura reaches carefully into the helmet, unfolding the paper and frowning. “Dinosaur? What does that mean?”

“Oldest has to drink!” Pidge shouts.

“I’ve got 10,000 years on all of you, so I guess it’s me.” Allura says, taking in a hefty gulp of her drink.

Keith suddenly realizes it was his turn- as they were going clockwise around the table- and grabs a piece of paper. “Times three.” He reads out loud, shrugging and taking three sips of his drink.

“My turn!” Lance launches himself towards the helmet. “Curse.” He frowns for a moment, thinking. “Pussy.” He says loudly.

Hunk laughs while he reaches for a paper, scanning it, then quickly bringing his finger up to touch his nose. Pidge follows, then Lance, Shiro and Allura. Keith watches them all, like it was in slow motion. 

“Too slow, Keith!!” Hunk laughs.

Keith frowns when he realizes he’s the only one without a finger to his nose, and takes a sip of his drink.

 

~

 

Forty minutes later, everyone is beginning to really feel the effects of the ‘space juice’. Hunk had taken his shirt off after drawing a ‘strip’ paper, Pidge was made to wear Lance’s helmet for the rest of the game, and Shiro had outright stopped following the rules and drank whenever he wanted to. 

There were only a few more pieces of paper to go. Allura had just drawn the freebie paper, which meant that Keith was next. He felt around in the helmet. There were maybe five pieces of paper left. He grabs on to what he thinks will be the most promising one.

He squints hard, trying to read the words. “There aren’t any words.” He tells the group.

Allura grabs the paper from him, giggling. “It says: sit on the person to your left’s lap for one round.”

Pidge cackles. “I crafted that just for him, too!”

“Hey....” Keith points a finger at her, “Fuck you, Katie. You don’t know me.”

She flips him off. “We’ve lived together for the past three years, stupid.”

“Oh no!” Keith says sarcastically, “Looks like I’ll have to sit on Lance’s lap! I’m sure you guys are  _ not _ going to enjoy this!” He crawls over to Lance, who is rocking back and forth a little. “You’re being too quiet,” he says, while awkwardly trying to position himself comfortably on top of him, “It’s freaking me out.”

Lance smiles coyly as he shifts himself beneath Keith’s weight. “Yea, well, when life gives you lemons.”

Keith giggles. There’s something stirring in the pit of his stomach. He’s sure that it’s from the space juice, and definitely NOT from the sudden closeness between him and Lance. 

“Lance, that doesn’t even make any sense.” Pidge slurs.

“Well, when life gives you lemons.” Lance repeats back to her.

Hunk is howling as Keith continues to try to get comfortable on Lance’s lap. Lance wraps his arms around his waist and Keith can feel his head drop onto his shoulder. His breath warm as it tickles the side of Keith’s neck. 

“Awww! Someone get the camera! They’re so cute!” Allura squeals. “Coran-” she turns to see Coran was face down on the table, sleeping. 

“What the fuck? How long has he been sleeping for?” Pidge asks, poking him. 

“Once he’s out, he’s out for like, twelve hours.” Allura says. “That’s why he goes to bed so early.”

Lance reaches his hand up to run his fingers through Keith’s hair, singing into his ear: “Tiny, cute sheep! You are so soft and tiny! I could just give you a purple nurple-” He reaches for Keith’s shirt quickly, but Keith pushes him away.

“I’m not tiny and don’t give me a purple nurple!” Keith yells.

“Okay… what if I….” Lance wraps both arms around Keith’s waist and tries to open up one of the pouches on his belt. “What do you even keep in here anyways?”

“Secret.” Keith states, grabbing Lance’s hand and throwing it away.

Lance frowns for a moment, a thought washing over him. “What could you keep that’s so secretive in there? Wait- if I tell you a secret of mine, will you show me what’s in there?”

“Depends on the quality of the secret.” Keith fires back. 

Lance reaches for the flap of a different pouch, his hand quickly smacked down by Keith.

“If I wasn’t drunk I’d be able to out-stealth you.” Lance slurs.

Keith scoffs. “Yea _ , okay. _ ”

“For real.”

“Don’t make this a challenge, Lance.”

“But I like to.”

_ Of course you like to that’s why I wanna fricken fuck you until the next century,  _ Keith almost spits out.

He clasps his hands over his mouth.

“Uh oh. Are you gonna barf, Keith?” Hunk asks beside him.

Keith jumps up, messes up Lance’s hair and grabs his phone placed on the table. As he runs out of the room, he shouts: “I’m the stealthiest Lance, deal with it!”

It takes a second before Lance replies, “Hey!” Then takes off after Keith.

“HEY! GET BACK HERE!” he shouts, exiting the room.

The room was quiet with the soft sound of music playing in the background when they had left.

“I’m taking bets on when they’re gonna fuck!” Pidge shouts.

“Hey.” Hunk says, holding up both of his hands. “Don’t say fuck. Say make love. Fuck just makes it sounds impersonal”

Pidge mimicked a puking sound. “I am… disgusted.”

“Just let them come to their own senses on their own terms.” Shiro garbles. “They need to figure it *hic* out for themselves.”

Pidge and Hunk exchange mildly worried glances. 

“He’s gone, dude. I think this Altean stuff does more to humans than just make us drunk.” Pidge says.

“I think so... ” Allura grabs Shiro’s right arm. “You need some water.”

Shiro laughs. “Voltron, assemble!”

“Isn’t that the Avengers?” Hunk asks.

Allura stands up, tripping a bit as she wobbles towards the kitchen. When she is fully out of the room, Shiro turns to Pidge and Hunk.

“Let’s hope that Thanos isn’t out there.”

“I think we’re safe from him.” Pidge says, rolling her eyes.

“Zarkon looks a lot like Thanos though…” Hunk raises an eyebrow. “Maybe they’re the same person.”

“The universe could throw anything at us and I wouldn’t be surprised, honestly.” Pidge rolls her eyes harder.

“We have to collect the infinity stones, team.” Shiro rests his chin on the table, his expression serious. “That’s how we defeat Zarkon.”

“Don’t do this, Shiro!” Hunk shouts. “Don’t mix them up! I will get very confused!”

The thirty-third Ke$ha song of the night comes on. Pidge jumps up.

“I’m putting on my own playlist, this party playlist is ridiculous!”

“Put on something from the eighties!” Hunk calls after her. “Wait- I’m coming with you!” He runs towards where the sound system is set up.

Shiro glances over to Coran, who hasn’t moved (possibly dead??). “Guess it’s just us boys this evening. A couple of boys being boys. Having some dude time.” He barely finishes his sentence before drifting off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long to post... i've been pretty busy the last few weeks. im trying to make the next chapters longer and heftier in plot so im gonna give myself two week intervals to get new chapters out. hope everyone is enjoying tho! this chapter was fun to write especially flippin rekt shiro haha


	4. Always

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nOV0vVfw8c
> 
> cla$$ic song

Keith is hiding under a blanket in his room when he hears the door swish open.

“Wow, Kogane. Very stealthy.”

He hears the shuffle of feet coming towards him before Lance launches himself onto the bed. 

“Oh my god, Lance, you weigh five thousand pounds!” Keith tries to push him off.

Lance isn’t budging. He rolls Keith up in the blanket so just his head was sticking out and sits on Keith’s back.

“Now you can’t get me.” Lance brags.

“You still have to tell me a secret, though.”

“Nope. Gimme my phone back first.”

“You’re acting like a kindergartener, Lance!”

“You’re the size of one.”

Keith flails his body in every direction in an attempt to through Lance off of him. He succeeds, causing Lance to tumble to the floor. Keith unrolls himself from the blanket and jumps onto Lance, straddling him. He holds his fist up.

“You have to tell me your secret before I give you anything.”

“You’re gonna punch me if I don’t tell you?”

“Maybe.”

They hold their positions, eyes narrowed. Neither ready to submit to the other.

The music playing outside of the room switches to Flo Rida. 

“Oh my god!” Lance squeals.

Keith feels himself falling forward, towards Lance’s chest. He puts his hands out on either side of Lance’s head, stopping himself before his face slams into Lance’s chin.

His mouth opens in shock. They are so close. 

He is so drunk, and if Lance shows any tiny fraction of interest Keith will have to kiss him. 

He can feel Lance’s soft breath on his face. His arms wrap slowly around Keith’s waist, pulling his hips closer to him. Keith can feel Lance’s warmth through the thin fabric of their pants. He arches his back a little more, deepening the closeness of their bodies.

_ It’s finally happening.  _ Keith wants to cheer, until Lance grabs his phone that was tucked in a back pouch on Keith’s belt and pushes him off. He lands on the ground and rolls onto his back.

“Lance! You didn’t need to be so aggressive!” Keith scolds. He did not expect to be thrown at such force.

“I love when you scream my name.” Lance says sarcastically.

“What the fuck?” Keith turns to face Lance. “Are you joking or serious? I can never tell.”

“What do you think?” Lance grins.

“I don’t know!” Keith sits up, crossing his legs. “Like I said, I can never tell! You can’t be vague with me, you should know that by now!”

“Why do you care so much?” Lance replies.

Well… here was his chance. Would it be appropriate to tell Lance how he felt while they were both completely fucked up, lying on the ground in his room? Maybe if he told him now, he would forget about it in the morning, and it would never bother him again. Lance would say he does not feel the same, Keith would know how Lance really felt and they could move on. The team would continue as they were and everything would be perfect. They would save the universe. Lance would find some hot alien and marry them, and Keith would go back to Earth and live out his life alone. It was meant to end that way, Keith knew it. 

Keith frowns. In the last few seconds his mind had drifted to some other place, and he completely forgets what Lance had asked him. “What?”

Lance is staring at him. “I said, why do you care so much?”

“About what, you?”

“Yea.”

The room spins, and he places his head back down on the ground. A wave of nausea passes over him from both his feelings for Lance and the space juice. “I think this Altean shit is doing something worse than alcohol.” Keith says. 

“Yea…” Lance agrees, dragging on the word. “This is bad.”

“I’ve never gotten drunk before. This is my first time.” He admits.

“That’s okay. You’re a virgin, it’s fine.” Lance says. “I’m a virgin too.”

“You said you drank before though?” Keith asks.

“What? You said ‘first time’, so I immediately thought about boning.”

“I said I’ve never gotten DRUNK before.” Keith says.

“Sorry.” Lance slurs. “I just have sex on my mind… you know… the usual.”

Keith giggles. “That’s nice to know.”

“Don’t be mean! I’m a young adult! I need to get it in!” Lance whines. “If we were back on Earth I definitely would have been sexually active by now, it’s not fair! We’re too busy here!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Keith adds.

“ _ Hey _ .” Lance warns. He rolls on his side to face Keith.

“What about  _ before _ we left Earth?” Keith chides, “You had a lot of time.”

“I had a huge crush on someone who didn’t give two shits about me.” Lance says quietly. “A huge waste of my time, really.”

Keith sits up, leaning on one arm. “Who was it? Was it someone at the Garrison? Can I guess? Do I know them?”

Lance nods. Keith expected him to at least smile when he showed interest in who Lance’s past crush was, but he looked so sad. Clearly this person had broken his heart. 

The door slides open, revealing Hunk- who had broken into Shiro’s room and put on one of his form-fitting shirts. 

“The rule in the drinking game was I couldn’t wear my own shirt, so I decided to wear one of Shiro’s sexy shirts.” He blurts.

Keith and Lance nod in agreement. Shiro  _ did _ always look incredible.

He sits down between them, placing one hand on Lance’s arm and one on Keith’s.

“Guys.” He begins, “I know you’re on the cusp of consummating your love for each other. But, and I hate to be selfish- even though it’s  _ my _ birthday- I have a really stupid idea that we need to do.”

“You lost me at constipating, Hunk.” Lance says, sitting up.

“COSUMMATING!”

“It sounded like constipating.” Keith agrees.

“You’re  _ constipating _ your love for each other?” Hunk asks.

Keith and Lance start giggling.

“Listen,” Hunk leans closer to both of them, “Between you and me, the green goo really does plug up the system. I haven’t gone in a while-”

“What was your stupid idea, Hunk?” Lance tries to steer Hunk away from going into the deep details of his bowel movements, which sometimes did happen. 

Keith feels another wave of nausea pass over him, this time coming up higher in his throat. That was bad news. He sprints towards the shared bathroom down the hall, leaving Lance and Hunk to discuss whatever stupid idea Hunk had.

 

A few minutes later, and his stomach feeling infinitely better, Keith exits the bathroom and heads back towards his room. He’s focusing so hard on his feet, trying to walk in a straight line and get to his room safely, he isn’t even aware of the rogue training droid heading his way. 

He falls to the side quickly, narrowly missing it. As it speeds away, he notices the droid is wearing one of Allura’s dresses and a long, white wig. Wait- was that actually Allura or a training droid?

Pidge and Allura jump over him, chasing the droid. His face scrunches up in confusion.

“We’re trying to get Shiro to think the droid is Allura and make out with it!” Pidge shouts as she runs towards the common area.

There’s a loud crash from around the corner, and Keith hears Allura shout- “Got it!”

“Hold it down while I put the tiara on!” Pidge commands.

There are several clanking metal sounds and struggling noises from Allura and Pidge, when Keith sees the droid zooming towards him again, heading back towards the direction it came from. 

Pidge and Allura follow after it, jumping over Keith.

“Did we interrupt you and Lance? Sorry!” Pidge shouts.

Keith doesn’t even have time to make a snarky comment before they are gone again. “Please take pictures of Shiro kissing the droid!” He shouts as loud as he can, hoping they will hear him. His voice echoes down the halls.

The music seems to have stopped, and Keith can hear Lance and Hunk still planning something loudly in his room. 

He approaches the door slowly, his steps barely audible, and pauses before entering when he hears his name. Evidently the two loudest members of the group were even louder when they were shit-faced.

“-Keith. I went to see if he was-” Lance was cut off.

“Listen, Lance.” Hunk begins. “You’ve always got Keith here. But, I really want to go to see Shay. I haven’t seen her in like, six months, and I really,  _ really _ wanna kiss her, but I’m too nervous cause I haven’t kissed anyone in such a long time and I want it to be good but I don’t know and-”

“Buddy.” Lance says calmly. “I have an idea.”

“If it’s practising on a pillow, I definitely thought of that, but I haven’t actually tried it. I was too scared cause I felt like a thirteen year old girl, to be honest.”

“We’re not gonna practise with pillows.” Lance says firmly.

“On our arms? Cause I’ve  _ definitely _ done that recently and it’s not that satisfying.”

“Please stop telling me what you’ve practised kissing on.”

Hunk is quiet.

Keith hears movement, then the creaking sound of weight on his bed.

“The best practise is on other people.  _ Real _ people.” Lance says. “Which we’ve both been lacking ever since we left Earth, unfortunately.”

“Very true.” Hunk mumbles. He seems to know the answer to their problem. “You’re my best friend, Lance.” 

“You’re mine.” Lance says, “We always gotta look out for each other, even when it comes to hooking up with our crushes. All I want is for you to be happy with Shay.”

“Aww! Come here!” Hunk squishes Lance in a bear hug. 

There is some murmuring, and more mattress squeaking. Then, Lance clears his throat.

“Let’s do this.”

The room goes dead silent for a second, then Keith hears a small peck. Lance and Hunk giggle, then there’s silence again. The faintest of sucking noises and heavy breathing begins.

Are they  _ actually _ making out? Keith stands to the left of his door - otherwise it would slide open-  and presses his ear to the wall.  _ What the _ …  _ this is lowkey kinda hot _ ...  _ but also really fucked up _ . They were in  _ his  _ room right now! Was this the beginning to a porno?! Was he supposed to walk in and join?! 

Keith throws his back to the wall and slides down.  _ What the fuck do I do?! _

He stays seated for a moment, staring at his feet, then decides to head to the common area. He walks slowly, balance still very skewed by the space juice. He stops for a second, trying to decide if he should go back and stop whatever was happening on his bed. It was HIS bed. The only person that should be kissing Lance on his bed was HIM. He was so close to having the most confusing boner of all time.

“I can’t get a boner right now.” He says to himself. “It would be a bad boner time.”

He enters the common area to see Coran passed out in the same place, and Shiro slow dancing with the training droid dressed as Allura. Pidge is sitting on the couch filming everything. He walks over to sit beside Pidge.

“I just heard you talking to yourself loudly about boners.” Pidge says, turning the camera to face Keith, “Can you elaborate?”

“No.” Keith says. “I can’t unhear what I heard.” 

Pidge scrunches her face. “What the fuck happened?”

“You’re so beautiful, Allura.” Shiro sings to the droid.

“Where is actual Allura?” Keith asks.

“She fell asleep in the control room.” Pidge says, directing the camera back to Shiro. “On Shiro’s chair.”

“That’s cute.” Keith smiles.

Pidge stops the recording. “I’ve never felt so trashed in my life.”

“I feel like there was crystal meth or something in there too.” Keith replies.

“How do you know what crystal meth feels like?” Pidge frowns.

“Just a guess.”

Shiro pulls the Allura droid to the couch and sits down. The droid sort of folds over then falls to the ground. Shiro picks it back up and places it gently beside him, patting the wig. 

“I think Allura is the most drunk!” He laughs.  _ Shiro is GONE. _

Keith and Pidge exchange glances.

“Where’s Hance and Lunk?” Shiro hiccups.

Keith’s eye widen, momentarily forgetting where he left them last. Pidge shrugs.

“How are you guys doing?” Shiro slurs, “No one feels sick, right?”

Keith smiles awkwardly, he also forgot that he threw up like, twenty minutes ago. Pidge shakes her head.

Shiro smiles back. “Good job, guys. We’re so great.” 

The room falls quiet, Shiro on the verge of falling asleep again, Pidge scrolling through pictures on her phone and Keith wondering what kind of idiotic thing was going to happen next. The couch is feeling really comfortable and inviting, as if he could lay down and pass out here for the rest of the night.  _ What time is it, anyway? _ The castle was set to operate on Earth hours, to help the Paladins retain a normal sleep schedule, so all of their phones and gadgets were set to the same time. 

His thoughts were interrupted when Hunk sprints by, shouting: “Pidge, I’m borrowing your laptop!”

It takes a moment to register with Pidge, before she realizes what he’s doing. She sprints after him. “Oh my god, no! You’re going to break it!” 

She left her phone on the couch beside Keith. He lightly taps it to see the time. 1:36 a.m. Keith glances over to see Shiro asleep, his head back on the couch, mouth wide open. 

Now would be a good time to call it a night.

 

Keith jumps a little when he steps into his room, and Lance is still in there. He is sitting on the ground, the rock and shell collection from earlier that day spread out in front of him. Keith steps over to him, resting his hands on his hips.

“How did you even find those? Did you look through my things?”

Lance pouts. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to take pictures of them, cause they’re cool. I also wanted to see all of the things you had collected, but, you weren’t here and I didn’t know where you went and I saw the rocks first and-”

Keith walks over to a medium-sized box in the corner of the room, where he was storing his most recent finds. Lance must have looked through here, but- little did he know, his collection was much bigger.

He presses a small square on the wall, and a panel slides open. 

Lance runs over. “Hey! Why do you get a cool secret room?!”

“They’re our closets. We all have them.” Keith states.

“ _ How _ have I missed this the three years I’ve been aboard this ship?!” 

Keith shrugs. “It’s not like we have endless amounts of clothes to store.”

“But now I can!” Lance jumps. “Or- I can put my bed in there and use my actual room for other cool things, like- I don’t know, a TV! Or, a bunch of couches! Make it party central! I could turn the closet into a beauty room!” He turns to see Keith smiling at him.

“Come on.” Keith pulls him in the walk-in closet. 

The automatic lighting turns on, an endless amount of colours shining against the grey walls.

Keith lightly pulls him to stop at set of shelves in the very back of the room. The highest shelves reach the top of his head, going all the way down to the floor. He picks up a stick figure made of twigs and red flowers and leaves.

“One of the Arusians made this. It’s supposed to be me.” Keith smiles. “They said they were going to make the rest of Voltron, but their village was burnt down, remember?”

“You just knew I was going to complain about them not making on of me.” Lance smirks.

“It’s as if I’ve been living with you for the past three years.” Keith says sarcastically.

Lance grins. He quickly moves on to another object.

“Balmean crystal.” Keith picks up the baseball-sized ice-blue stone. It hums with energy.

“Thought I recognized that.” Lance says. He takes it out of Keith’s hand. “I wonder if this could like, charge my phone.”

Keith snickers. “I’ve never thought of that.”

Lance taps his temple. “I’m smarter than you think.”

“I know that.” Keith says, shoving Lance lightly with his shoulder. “I’ve never thought you were stupid.”

“I was joking, but, thanks.” Lance says, a blush making its way across his cheeks.

They walk towards a wall of postcards of different places all over the galaxy. 

“I got those at a space mall, oddly enough.” Keith admits. 

“I love when alien races do mundane human stuff that I never realized I would miss.” Lance says, keeping his eyes on the postcards.

“Did you notice the party balloons from tonight?” Keith asks, “I can’t believe they had them leftover from Allura’s first birthday party.” 

Lance giggles. “You should add one to your collection.”

“I really should.” Keith smiles.

“Oh my god!” Lance runs to another shelf. “The weird dildo-shaped statues we got from that one planet!”

Keith laughs as Lance grabs the green phallic figurine and gawks at it.

~

Eight months ago, Allura had assigned the Paladins to meet with potential allied planets. Shiro and Pidge had gone to one in the solar system, Coran and Hunk to another, and Keith and Lance to the last one.

The planet was small, with everything in hues of jade green. The water surrounding the city district sparkled emerald, the buildings constructed with various green stones. Even the sky was the palest of green. The place was beautiful, and the inhabitants were very welcoming. They provided them with a hearty meal, discussing ideas for their allied treaty with the ten main diplomats from each part of the planet. 

An agreement was eventually reached, and the diplomats wanted to celebrate Voltron and the peace they brought. A party was thrown in the courtyard of the government building. Blue and red lights twinkled above the crowd, specifically for Keith and Lance- the famous paladins who had graced their planet. Keith remembers watching Lance chat away with everyone that came up to him, leaving them dazzled. Keith stood by the fountain that was spurting out what tasted like chocolate for most of the night. It was green, like everything else. It made him miss Pidge. She was just as socially awkward as he was. 

As the night progressed, Keith felt himself sinking further into the crowd, then eventually getting overwhelmed with the amount of people- er, whatever-they-were, there and running into the forest for a breath of fresh air.

He wanted to leave so badly, but trying to get to Lance was impossible. He had charmed the entire party, and no one seemed ready to say goodbye. He was tempted to call Pidge or Shiro and let them know how it was going, but realized they must have been tied up as well. 

He sat against a tree, peeking up at the sky through a break in the leaves. It was so clear. Everywhere they went the night sky was so much more detailed than Earth’s. Or, what Keith remembered of Earth’s night sky. 

A few bushes shook as something made their way through them, Lance stepping out.

Keith frowned. “What’s going on?”

“I saw you leave.” Lance said. “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.” Keith said quietly.

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

“So what?” Keith asked. “We have another ally.”

Lance pursed his lips, walking over to the tree Keith was sitting against. “In the grand scheme of good ol’ Voltron versus the Galra, it’s great, however, the paladins should be in good spirits to save the universe.”

Keith snickered. “Wow, what a statement.”

Lance lowered himself to the ground. “They should. I know we need to focus on our mission, but we need to take care of ourselves too.”

“I’m fine.”

“No you’re not, Keith.”

“Don’t tell me how I’m feeling.”

“Maybe it will get you to deal with it better.”

“You’re not my therapist.”

“I’m not.” Lance agreed. “But I care about you, and want to make sure you’re doing okay.”

Keith froze. Lance cared about him? Lance had never said anything that nice to him before. At this point, they did not bicker as much, and occasionally would train together, but Keith figured Lance would always sort-of hate him.

“I know, it’s weird.” Lance started, practically reading his mind, “I don’t think I hate you anymore.”

Keith laughed. “I never hated you.”

“Yea, you’ve said that before.”

Keith watched a green, fluffy, caterpillar-type thing dig through the dirt, Lance waiting for him to say something. The look he was giving him was encouraging. Keith sighed.

“I can’t be in large groups like that for too long. It makes me uncomfortable and I don’t like meeting new people like this.” 

Lance put his hand on Keith’s knee. “I know. And I got carried away, I’m sorry.”

Something stirred in Keith’s stomach that he had never felt before. A flicker. It was exciting, but also scary. He wanted more of it, but also to ignore it. 

It was like a switch. Something changed in him that he could never get back. The extreme anger brought on by the other boy was gone. It would never come back after this night. He felt different when Lance did something stupid from then on. It wasn’t hate. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t irritation. 

It was endearing. It was adorable. And Keith wanted to say that that stupid boy was his.

When the party wrapped up later, the diplomats presented each of them with the penis-shaped statue. They called it ‘encouragement for Voltron’. 

Keith could see Lance physically biting his tongue. Before Lance could hurt himself from holding back laughter, Keith said some final goodbyes, leading them back to their lions.

“We almost made it through one of these things without something weird happening.” Lance mentioned.

~

Lance holds the tip of the figure up to his face. “Did you know there’s a jewel at the top?”

Keith shakes his head, mind occupied with the memories of the jade planet. The ending of that evening was really special to him, sharing a part of himself that he had never shared with anyone else before. He didn’t think it would ever happen.

“Lance.” Keith says, taking the statue from him and placing it back on the shelf.

“What?”

“I know bickering and being rivals has been our thing, but, you do understand that I have never shared some of the things I’ve told you with anyone else? Ever?”

Lance’s eyes meet his. “Yea. I kind of guessed that.”

“It was because of that night when we got the penis statues that I knew I could trust you.”

“I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.” Lance smiles. “All I wanted was for you to celebrate the smaller accomplishments other than defeating Galra, er- the  _ bad  _ Galra.”

“Why though?”

“Well… I just… I don’t know.” Lance takes a step towards him. “You being happy… makes me happy.”

Keith decided that that was the best cue he would ever get. No turning back now. He places his hands on Lance’s chest and glances up to see blue eyes staring back at him. So pretty. The colour of the Caribbean waters from back home. That was the only blue he could compare them too.

Lance wraps an arm around his waist, pulling him closer, his other hand coming up to trace Keith’s jawline with his thumb and forefinger softly and stop at his chin. Keith parts his lips, noticing Lance doing the same and begins to lean in. With the thousands of scenarios he imagined of how he would first kiss Lance, Keith knew that if it were to actually happen, it would be either soft and tender, or aggressive and passionate. Each were fun in their own ways. 

Their lips were a breath away, when the whole castle trembles in a recognized pattern.

Keith’s eyes shoot open. He see’s his confusion reflected in Lance’s eyes.

“Someone is trying to fly one of their lions?” Lance asks.

“Oh no.” Keith replies.

Both boys begin to run towards the hangars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was my favourite chapter to write so far... and evidently KIASK's fav too. i flippin love writing shiro as a lightweight.. i figured he hasnt turned up in a while so his system is like overwhelmed lol.. also i SCREAMT over the season 3 trailer... can't believe our pals return to us beginning of august. so flippin pumped.
> 
> insta: @cassssc  
> tumblr: @bossybinch
> 
> KIASK is my editor... but they also write.. if you like bts check out their fanfic! it's a good time!
> 
> Notes from the Editor pt. 2
> 
> Chapter 4… wow.  
> Proud of my m8 for putting this all out there. I don’t know anything about Voltron but I’ve become v attached to these poor boyz and their awkward bonners.   
> Hope you all continue to love and support <3<3
> 
> xoxo KIASK
> 
> Also can someone pls confirm for me whether or not dicks twitch? It’s for science… 
> 
> If you wanna yell @ me:  
> Twitter: @sopeonawhim  
> Tumblr: catchmeadragon.tumblr.com


	5. I Want You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JELoEQHLDI
> 
> smut thyme
> 
> thank you so much everyone for the kudos/comments, i appreciate it so so so much!!!! :D i also created a playlist with all of the songs from this fic, plus other ones that inspire the chapters, check it out!
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/casschad69/playlist/0vbghGOc1KItS0KVyucs4Z

When they arrive in the giant room mere seconds later, Pidge is handcuffing Hunk to a spot on the wall at the other end. He is flailing around miserably.

“I’M NOT GONNA HAVE A DAY OFF FOR A LONG TIME PIDGE! PLEASE LET ME GO SEE SHAY WHILE I CAN!”

Pidge secures the handcuffs and puts the key in her pocket. “I understand that, but no one is in the right condition to fly the lions.”

Lance is running over to his friend before Keith can react.

“You tried to fly your lion to Balmera?!” Lance shrieks.

“Almost.” Pidge says. “After he almost BROKE MY COMPUTER trying to find a decent route to Shay.” She glares at Hunk.

“Well, Allura can’t make a wormhole when she’s passed out!” Hunk whines, “So I had to find some way to get there!”

Lance crosses his arms. “How far away is Balmera anyways?”

Keith approaches the group, “Crazy far, last time I checked.” He makes eye contact with Lance and notices his cheeks redden.

“It’s not fair!” Hunk pouts. “Keith and Lance have each other, Shiro and Allura are together, Coran is everyone’s crazy, fun uncle and Pidge you have your computer! Can’t I see Shay at least once!”

Keith glances over at Lance, awaiting his reaction. He’s sure Lance is aware of how he feels by now, so it really all boils down to whether or not Lance acknowledges Hunk’s comment or not.

Lance frowns, staring at Hunk. “It’s not fair that you’re left out at all. Let’s talk to Allura and Shiro tomorrow and see if we can take some time to visit Balmera.” He crouches down to be on the same level as him, and touches his arm. “We all deserve someone to make our space travels a little less cold and lonely. Especially you.”

Hunk nods sadly. “Fine.”

“Do I still need to leave you tied up here?” Pidge asks.

“No. I’m going to bed.”

Pidge unlocks the handcuffs, allowing Hunk to stand up again. Lance pulls him into a hug.

“Wonderful.” Pidge says, swinging the handcuffs around. “I’ve got the spins so I’m gonna go try to sleep it off before it gets any worse.” She walks towards the elevators.

Lance is resting his hands on Hunk’s shoulders. He gives them a squeeze. “We will go see Shay soon, I promise.”

“Thanks.” Hunk says.

“Anything for my best pal.” Lance smiles.

They turn to Keith, who is standing off to the side, arms crossed.

“I’m going to walk Hunk to his room.” Lance begins, motioning towards the door, “But-”

“It’s okay.” Keith interrupts. “We can talk about things tomorrow. It’s been a long night.”

“Uh- alright.” Lance says softly. “Good night?”

“Night.” Keith nods.

“I’m sorry that I cockblocked you!” Hunk shouts before him and Lance leave the room.

Keith rolls his eyes, hearing Lance scoff and say; “Dammit, Hunk!”

Keith stares up at the yellow lion, trying to talk to her. Along with his bond with Red, sometimes he felt little nudges from Blue and Shiro’s lion. Like they were making sure he was okay.

Yellow did not have much to say, and after a few moments in the too-quiet hangar, Keith notices he feels a bit more energized than before. Sleep seems out of the question, even though it’s the dead of night.

He heads towards the elevator and goes to the floor where they were playing truth or dare or whatever-that-drinking-game-could-be-called. When the doors open, he is met with a mess. There are spilt drinks all over the table, balloons everywhere, and Coran sitting in the _same_ spot for what must have been over four hours.

Sitting across from Coran at the table, Keith notices that there are still a few papers left in Pidge’s helmet. He pulls them out one-by-one and reads them.

 

_Drink if you’ve had a sex dream about another paladin_

_Reverse: the order goes the other way_

_Sit on Shiro’s lap_

_Hunk gets to give you a bear hug for 10 seconds_

_Get someone to spell out Zarkon’s name backwards, if they can’t they have to drink_

_Staring contest against Allura, loser drinks_

_If you’re name starts with a K, you have to be locked in a small closet with Lance for seven minutes_

 

He bangs his fist on the table after reading the last one. _Come on, Pidge!_ It seems like she wanted him and Lance to hook up more than he did. He couldn’t wait until tomorrow, when they would have to get back to saving the universe. Then there would be less time to think about Lance. And their almost kiss. And how he wants more. _Dammit._

He didn’t want to be in the castle anymore. It’s hum was too familiar, reminding him of the other times he couldn’t sleep in his cold, dark room. Having one day to hangout at the beach made him miss Earth more than usual, and he felt he was still craving the sounds of waves splashing on the shore, loud insects and wind rustling the leaves.

He walks out of the castle as quietly as he can, noticing the burnt fire pit from earlier that evening. Thank god someone put it out before they started drinking.

The path down to the beach was brightened immensely by the moons, still beaming in the clear night sky. It was weird to feel a breeze very similar to Earth’s, then look up to see the wrong galaxies.

The tide had picked up a bit since Keith was down there last, waves getting choppier as the wind picked up. It was soothing, combined with the cold sand feeling soft against his bare feet.

Keith sees a figure lying in the sand, a foot away from the water. Was it one of them? Or an actual inhabitant of this planet? He’s hesitant to approach this person, almost wanting to turn back. Having someone else here at this time was not what he wants.

He notices a familiar orange on the sleeve of a jacket, spread out on the sand. Lance was perched on top.

_Oh boy._

Lance watches him, hair blowing in the wind, as Keith nears Lance’s jacket.

“Well, well, well.” Lance says. “Fate has forced us together in this moment.”

“Oh my god.” Keith plops down beside him, looking out into the ocean and trying to hide his smile, “Don’t make me go back inside.”

Lance reaches over to tuck a stray piece of Keith’s dark hair behind his ear. “Please don’t.” He says.

Keith feels his entire face turn red. _It’s a good thing it’s dark out_.

“I was thinking about Lucky Charms before you came down here.” Lance continues, “I miss them so much.”

“Food is a sensitive subject,” Keith snorts, “Cause anything from Earth is better than what we’ve gotten out here.”

“Even the guy who cares the least about what we eat misses Earth food, huh?”

Keith shrugs. “Something solid would be nice, at least.”

“Valid point.” Lance laughs.

There’s a pause. Keith feels himself lean closer to Lance, still thinking about their almost-kiss. It must have meant that Lance might like him back, right? He turns to look up at him. Keith is basically pressed into Lance’s shoulder, but Lance seems to be in a dream state, gazing at the pink moons.

“Lance.”

“Hm?”

“I have to ask you something, because I’m not good at subtlety, or reading people, and- I… I just need to know, so I can move on with my life.”

“Ok.”

“And- we just… never have time to talk about this stuff… cause we’re so busy doing other things- like, saving the universe- and I think now is just a good time to get it out and even if-”

“Keith.” Lance glances down at him. “This is the longest I’ve ever heard you talk. _I’m_ the one that likes to talk, this is weird.”

“I know. But, just know, however this conversation ends up going, I’m okay with pretending it never happened. We’re both still kinda drunk. But, like I said, I just want to move on with my life.”

“Alright. Noted. _Please_ tell me.”

Keith feels a rush of fear spread over him. _No turning back after this_.

“We almost kissed in my room.”

“Yea, we did.”

“Do you wanna try to kiss me again?”

Lance flashes a crooked grin. “More than anything.”

He angles himself so that he’s face to face with Keith, their noses just millimeters apart. Keith closes his eyes, hesitating as he holds his breath and braces for impact. He feels like an eternity has passed by the time Lance says something.

“Keith, open your eyes for a second.”

Keith feels his face get hot as his heart pounds in his chest, dying to break free of his ribcage. When he opens his eyes he’s met with the deep blue ocean of Lance’s. _Breathtaking._

“Keith…”

“... Yeah?”

“You’re not breathing, are you sure this is okay?”

Keith nods his head shyly, taking in a sharp breath as Lance slides his hands up to either side of his face, at last closing the distance between them. Keith sighs softly into the kiss, letting the sensation of Lance’s lips wash over him. _It’s warm._

It starts out soft, neither of them moving as they ease into it. Lance slowly begins to move one of his hands down to the small of Keith’s back, the other tracing around to the back of his head in order to deepen the kiss, using his tongue to part Keith’s lips in order to get a better taste.

Lance tastes like space juice and candy. Keith can’t help but let out a small moan as he lets this new sensation wash over him. _When was the last time anyone ever kissed me like this? HAS anyone ever even kissed me like this?_ Keith finds his hands wandering the expanse of Lance’s chest, working their way down to his waist where he tightens his grip, pulling the boy in even closer as he slips his tongue along bottom line of his top lip. Lance giggles in his mouth a bit, causing Keith to pull away alarmed and embarrassed.

“Fuck… did I do something wrong?”

“Keith.. What? No! You’re doing just fine…”

Lance looks dreamily into Keith’s eyes.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Keith hesitates for a second. _Of course I don’t want you to stop you idiot._

“N-no…”

Lance giggles again, causing a sharp death glare from Keith.

“What?!”

Keith huffs.

“It’s just that… you’re really cute when you’re turned on, ya know?”

Keith blushes.

“Shut up.”

“It’s true!”

Lance continues to tease lightly, nipping at Keith’s lips.

Keith pulls his head away and frowns at him.

“I am NOT cute.”

“You should _really_ see yourself right now.”

Despite being a little peeved at being called ‘cute’ Keith doesn’t pull away from Lance’s grip. Instead he removes his hands from the boy’s waist and brings them up to his collar, grabbing a handful of his shirt and pulling Lance in towards his mouth; hungry and driven. _I’ll show YOU cute, asshole._

Whatever it is he’s doing seems to work, because Lance is no longer laughing and trying to call him cute. His giggles now replaced with hitched breathing and the beginnings of a hungry growl. Keith releases his grip on the collar and moves his hands back to their position on Lance’s waist, this time taking the liberty to slip them underneath his shirt, just above the waistband of his boxers causing him to shiver slightly at his touch.

“Keith… your hands… are so cold…”

Lance manages to say between kisses.

“Mhmm… maybe you should help me warm them up.”

 _What the fuck am I saying?!_ Keith has gone into autopilot at this point, not thinking before uttering light teasing phrases into Lance’s mouth. He knows it definitely isn’t the space juice talking, because making out with Lance in the cool night breeze was a pretty sobering experience.

“Yeah… and how do you suggest I do that?”

Lance nips at Keith’s ear lightly, sending a rush of sensations down his spine.

Keith starts to tug lightly at Lance’s waistband, snapping the elastic against his skin. His hands are moving on his own, burning under the heat radiating from Lance’s bare skin. He doesn’t dare peek down, knowing full well what’s there already. _I can’t be the only one here with a fucking hard-on._

“Just stay close to me…” Keith manages to stutter.

He’s nervous as fuck, especially because Lance seems to be so relaxed. Suddenly a new sensation takes over as Lance begins to kiss down the length of Keith’s neck, biting down just above his collarbone and sucking lightly.

“Lance!”

Lance lets up and leans back slightly to admire his work.

“So pretty…”

He coos lightly before he goes back in, now with his tongue.

The sensation is warm, and as much as he wants to deny it, Keith loves the way his mouth feels on his skin. He finds himself leaning back onto the soft, grey jacket that’s spread out underneath them. _Lance._

Lance slowly begins to move himself on top of Keith, who’s now completely on his back. The pink glow of the moons casting an ethereal halo around him. He stops for a second, looking down at Keith.

“Is this okay?”

Keith is taken aback by the seriousness in Lance’s tone.

He feels a warmth in his chest that threatens to spill out of him at any moment. _He’s seriously asking me if this is okay?_

Keith grabs the back of Lance’s neck and lifts himself up to meet his lips.

“Of course it’s fucking okay.” Keith barely manages to whisper into Lance’s mouth.

Lance gently lets Keith back down onto the jacket, slowly guiding his body with his hand as he continues to hungrily tongue into his mouth. Keith’s breathing is coming out in small gasps, occasionally causing him to give into the sounds building low in his chest.

Lance hums as he releases his mouth from Keith’s, and slowly moves back down to the mark he had left earlier.

“ _Lance…”_

Keith whines into the crook of his arm as he brings it up to cover his face, hot from the friction being caused by each and every one of Lance’s movements.

Lance doesn’t let up. He continues to move down the length of Keith's body, slowly lifting up his shirt to access what’s underneath.

Keith can feel warm hands making their way down the front of his abdomen. He swallows hard as they begin to fumble with the clasp of his jeans. _Oh my god… It’s happening._

 _“_ Wait… Lance stop.”

Lance stops moving and looks up at Keith, eyes questioning.

“I just… Are you sure? I mean…”

“Keith.”

Keith gets up on his elbows to see Lance’s expression a little better.

“You don’t have to… You know…”

Lance grins just before plopping a kiss onto Keith’s exposed stomach.

“What if I want to though?”

Keith stares down blankly at him for a moment, embarrassed by how turned on he is.

“Um...okay...”

Keith bites down on his lip and tears his gaze away from Lance’s. He hears a low chuckle before feeling lips grazing the top of his waistband. He closes his eyes and throws his head back.

“I’ll be gentle…” He hears Lance mumble.

His jeans are undone and Lance is already mouthing at his growing erection through his boxers. The friction causing Keith to squirm a bit underneath Lance’s firm hold. Lance’s hands make quick work of releasing him from the confines of his jeans and boxers, and the need for contact is satiated by a smooth stroke of his tongue up Keith’s length.

“Holy _fuck_ Lance…”

Keith lets a low moan escape from his lips.

Lance hums as he continues to tease Keith with the tip of his tongue, occasionally placing small kisses where he feels deserves them. Keith continues to squirm, feeling hot as he gets harder.

“Lance… _please.”_

He suddenly feels a rush of warmth as Lance brings his mouth fully down onto Keith, using his tongue to create a heavenly sensation. _He’s really going for it._

He continues to lap at Keith until he brings him to the absolute edge.

“Aah… Lance… _fuck… You don’t have to… Ah.. I’m gonna...”_

Keith is an absolute mess. Lance can obviously tell how close he is because he speeds up, going harder and deeper until it’s too much for Keith and he finds release.

Lance starts to chuckle as he licks Keith clean, the soft moonlight reflecting off of his skin in a way that makes him sparkle.

“What’s so funny?!”

Keith tries to sit up, but he’s feeling too light headed still and ends up falling backwards again.

“Nothing… I was just thinking about how beautiful you look in this light.”

Keith blushes as Lance pulls himself up to be face to face with him.

“So what am I, cute or beautiful?”

“Both.” he pauses, “And smart… sexy… an amazing pilot...”

Keith turns his head away but wraps his arms around Lance, pulling him in close to his chest.

“Stop.” He chuckles.

“Why?”

“Cause… it’s weird.”

Lance peers up at him. “I’ve always thought that about you, it just took me a bit to come to terms with it… plus, I just sucked you off so it can’t be any weirder than that.”

Keith breaks out into a cackle, startling Lance a bit.

Lance watches him, with the hint of smile. He kisses him softly.

Keith is suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion. The warm body against his doesn’t help in fighting sleep off either. He shifts his body on its side so he’s nose to nose with Lance. His eyes are drooping, and he looks just as tired as Keith feels. _Cute._

Lance’s arms loop lazily around his waist and he pulls him in before closing the gap between their parted lips one last time. Keith tries to fight sleep off a bit longer, holding onto Lance and praying for this moment to never end but it’s a pointless battle. Soon they’re both slipping into dreamland under the soft light of the moons, the sound of waves crashing against the shore lulling them into the deepest sleep.

 

The sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon, when Keith awakes, freezing cold.

Lance is gone.

Panic sparks in his chest as a million thoughts shoot through his mind. _He didn’t get anything from me so he doesn’t care. I can’t show that I like him the same way he does for me, so what’s the point? Did he just wanna hook up with me then leave? Maybe it was the space juice the whole time… he’s not really interested._

He starts to walk back towards the castle, not really sure what he’s going to do when he gets there. _Did Lance just go inside to pee then fall asleep? How did he forget about me? Wait- is that-_

“Shiro?” Keith asks when he sees a tall, broad figure running up to the castle from the other direction.

Shiro slows down when he gets to Keith. He’s covered in sweat, dark circles under his eyes, skin a green tone.

“Morning.” he says, the usual enthusiasm gone.

“What’s going on?” Keith asks, “You went for a run?”

“Well... I woke up and immediately had to puke, so I ran to the bathroom, but then needed some fresh air so I went outside. I decided- I’m not sure why- that maybe running and sweating out the space juice would be helpful, so I ran for thirty seconds, then puked then I started to run back here and met up with you.”

“Oh.”

“Yea…” Shiro pushes his hair back from his face. “I feel like I got a bad batch of the space juice.”

Keith nods in agreement, knowing that they all drank the _same_ space juice, but doing it so Shiro can feel a little less embarrassed by the _disaster_ that was him last night.

“Nice hickey.” Shiro mentions.

Keith tenses up. _Fuck._ “Thanks. Lance inevitably left me on the beach, so it’s a proud marker of the mistake I made last night.”

“He’s actually asleep in the kitchen right now, still somehow holding a full glass of water, so I wouldn’t jump to conclusions.” Shiro says.

Pidge walks outside, laptop in hand and freezes when she sees the two talking. “You’re not dead, Shiro?!”

“Not yet.”

Pidge giggles, approaching them. “I’m going to do one more walk around the island, see what I can find. Keith, those stones you found yesterday have some sort of magical properties to them- it’s really cool! I’m gonna try to find more.”

“That’s great Pidge, but- how are you feeling totally okay right now?” Keith asks.

“Dunno.”

A neon blue light sparks at the top of the castle. Keith and Shiro see it first, turning around immediately.

“The particle barrier is forming?” Keith asks.

The blue light descends down the castle, creating the usual hexagon pattern. Before it can reach the ground, Shiro and Keith take off in its direction.

“Why would they put the barrier on?” Shiro shouts, quickly approaching the castle.

Keith wonders the same thing. As far as he knew everyone else was passed out drunk in the castle. Minus Coran of course, but there was no reason for him to put it up. He prepares himself to slide under the small opening between the barrier and the ground, but realizes there’s no way he can make it. Neither can Shiro. The barrier meets the ground, sealing the castle inside.

They both halt to a stop before banging into the newly-formed wall. Keith is panting, really feeling his hangover. Shiro runs over to the ledge and squats down, putting his head between his legs. _He must be puking again_.

Pidge catches up to them, managing to type on her laptop and run at the same time.

“The system is hacked.”

“Again?!” Keith remembers when Sendak took over the castle’s system a few years ago. It was a shit show.

The particle barrier begins to shift to a pink hue, along with all of the other external neon blue lights.

“It’s not Galra?” Keith asks.

“I don’t think so.” Pidge is still staring at her computer. “The virus seems to be written in a language I’ve never seen before.”

Shiro joins them again, looking very queasy. “Pidge- can you get inside?”

“I’m trying.” She says, sitting on the ground so she can type faster.

“Anyone have anything to make contact with Lance, Hunk, Allura or Coran?” Shiro asks the two.

Keith remembers Lance’s jacket on the beach. Maybe his phone was in one of the pockets. He sprints off towards the beach, shouting; “Let me check Lance’s jacket!”

Behind him, he hears the blast of the rockets. He stops in his tracks and spins around. The castle was taking off.

As it slowly begins to float above the ground, he sprints even faster to Lance’s jacket. _Don’t fail me now, drunk Lance._ He slides into the sand, grasping at every pocket. The ship rotates, getting higher in the sky. Something hard is in a pocket, and he fumbles to open it. It’s Lance’s phone. He tries to turn it on, shaking too much to get a good push of the buttons. A gust of wind blasts the beach as the ship goes into hyper speed, roaring out of the atmosphere. Keith is pushed back onto the sand, forced to watch the ship disappear with his friends. There’s a small pink twinkle, then nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Deleted Scene by KIASK
> 
> Keith leans in towards Lance.  
> Lance pushes a finger to Keith’s lips.  
> “Hold on, we should set the mood first.”  
> He pulls out his phone and brings up the space version of YouTube, fumbling as he types in Santana Smooth ft. Rob Thomas.  
> The guitar wails softly out of the broken speaker of his iPhone. (He dropped it in water once so now it sounds BAD).  
> “Okay, where were we?”  
> Keith either barfs or cums immediately.  
> IDK  
> Choose Your Own Adventure.


	6. Psychopathic Crush

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> got that Lorde obsession like everyone else
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQkdwymDanE

It takes a moment for Keith to realize what just happened. He is lying on Lance’s jacket, looking up at the  _ now empty _ sky. Lance’s phone is in his hand, but he can’t seem to move. 

After being a defender of the universe for so long, Keith is used to having react calmly to high stake situations in a short period of time.  _ However,  _ the castle getting hacked by strangers and simply leaving him on this random planet was the last thing he could have ever expected. He was not even an ounce prepared for this. 

He glances over to Lance’s phone.  _ Does it even work? Can it even call the ship _ ? He searches over the screen for an icon that resembles a phone. A contact list pops up, and Keith jams his finger to Hunk’s name as soon as he sees it. The phone rings. Nothing.

Allura’s name is on the list. He selects her next. No answer.

Pidge’s name is the only other option, and she is perched on the hill rapidly typing on her computer.

He hits Hunk’s name again, just in case. 

And again. 

And again.

Keith is now up and pacing over Lance’s jacket, carrying more sand onto it- but he does not notice. He  _ needs _ to contact someone on board and see what the hell is going on.

He hits Allura’s name. It rings six times, then no answer.

“Dammit!” He shouts, stomping his foot onto the ground. The phone goes back to the home screen, Keith noticing for the first time that it’s a picture he took with Lance on the beach yesterday.

“WHY WOULD YOU PUT US AS YOUR BACKGROUND THEN DISAPPEAR!” He screams, almost crushing the phone in his hand. 

“FUCK YOU, LANCE!” He hurls the phone across the beach, kicking sand up in the air during the process. 

Someone is approaching slowly. The crunch of sand beneath their feet is loud. He doesn’t bother turning around, there are only two other people on this island with him, and only one who can handle his meltdowns. A warm hand rests on his shoulder.  

“They’re so unprepared. They’re gonna get tortured… and killed…” Keith feels tears roll down his cheeks.

“Jumping to conclusions again.” Shiro says softly behind him. “We’re all feeling a lot of emotions, on very little sleep and also extremely hungover. Let’s go to Pidge and see what we can do.”

Keith lets Shiro walk him back to the grassy hill. He had never gotten so emotional over his teammates before, or had an outburst to this extent. Why was he being like this? He was an  _ expert _ at reacting to these kind of situations. It was basically his job. 

He collapses beside Pidge, Shiro falling to the other side.

“So far I can only see where the ship is heading.” Pidge says, still typing. “But I have to hack into the system of whoever hacked into  _ our _ system, and it’s in a language I’ve never seen. Gimme a few more minutes.”

Shiro and Keith watch her type furiously, unsure of how they can help. Keith feels his eyes begin to droop, being hit with the realization that he is way too short on sleep to focus on anything. He tries to fight it, knowing that his presence is most definitely going to be needed any moment, but eventually feels himself leaning on Shiro’s strong yet soft shoulder. He is out in seconds.

 

The dream is vivid and intense. Lance is on top of him, and they are both completely naked, drenched in sweat. The sky over them is dark, with twinkling stars and deep red galaxies. 

Lance nips at his neck, receiving a deep sigh from Keith in return. He runs his hand from Keith’s shoulder blade, down the arch of his back and to his ass, slowly. He squeezes it and Keith moans. Lance’s touch is exceptionally hot. Burning yet tingling in the most pleasurable way. 

When Lance’s mouth meets his, he kisses back, hungrily. He claws at Lance’s back, wanting more. Lance moans softly into his mouth. He loves that sound. He wants to hear more of it.

Lance’s face hovers just inches above his own, pushing his bangs back and kissing his forehead. He makes his way down to his nose, then just above his lips. He pauses. Keith pushes against him, eager for more, but Lance watches him and smiles.

“If I hadn’t had you this whole time, I would have gone back to Earth by now.”

He kisses Keith, then presses him down when Keith tries to pull him closer.

“My beautiful star- so bright and warm.”

He kisses Keith again.

“Don’t ever leave me. Space is so cold without you.”

Keith feels Lance’s heat slip away, then he is in his paladin gear, crouching behind a large boulder. Lance is beside him, leaning against the rock. There is blood seeping through his paladin armour.

“I don’t want to leave you like this.” He says, tears running down his cheeks. “It isn’t fair.”

He pulls Keith by his armour and kisses him desperately. Keith digs his hands into the back of Lance’s neck, lightly pulling his hair. Eventually they pull apart, panting.

“You’re going to be okay, Lance.” Keith whispers. “ _ Please _ . For me. You’re going to be fine.”

Lance falls against the boulder, limp. “I love you so much.” His eyes travel up to the sky.

 

He wakes up covered in sweat, almost immediately worried that Pidge or Shiro somehow knew of the intense dream he just had. But they’re gone. And it’s night.

_ I really hope that wasn’t a premonition of any sort. _ It was like something out of a romance novel.

He runs his hand over Lance’s mark on his neck. It sends a warm tingle below his stomach.  _ I miss him so much. _

Rising slowly, he scans the beach and jungle for his friends. Nowhere to be seen. He goes to the only thing that feels the most like home.

He shakes the sand off of it the best he can. Until the jacket is fully washed, it’s going to have sand hiding in it for the rest of eternity. Nonetheless, he puts Lance’s jacket on, instantly feeling swallowed up in material. The arms were a lot longer than he expected. Too long for him. But it smells like Lance- warm, happy and fresh from being on the beach all night. Keith feels his anxiety lower slightly, almost as if everything could be okay while he was wearing this jacket. 

He sits on the sand, facing the water and staring up at the two moons again. It was weird that less than 24 hours ago he and Lance were here. How he wished he could have frozen time then. 

Distracted by his thoughts, he doesn’t even hear Shiro approach him and sit down.

“How are you doing?” Shiro asks.

“Fine.” Keith answers automatically.

“Very believable Keith, you’re sitting here wallowing while wearing Lance’s jacket.”

Keith smirks. “I am, aren’t I?”

A strong breeze passes by them, picking up sand and making them squint.

“Pidge is still working on finding a way to communicate with the ship. If nothing changes soon, we’ll have to head to another island and see if the citizens here can help us.” 

Keith nods slowly.

“He’s going to be okay. You have to have hope.” Shiro says.

“I do… but, I don’t know if I can do this all the time.”

“Do what?”

“I can’t be this attached to someone. Not in our situation. Not when it’s someone else who could get taken out by our enemy any day.”

“Do you-”

“Yea, I think I’m falling for him. Realized that during this stupid vacation.” Keith smiles. “I also fucking hate him more than anything.”

“Pretty opposite feelings there, huh?”

“Yea. It’s fucked.”

“I could never tell that you hated him.” Shiro mentions sarcastically.

Keith punches him on the arm. “Shut up.” He chuckles quietly.

“Allura and I had this discussion when we both started to realize our feelings for eachother.” Shiro begins, “and we decided that having someone there for you at the end of an intense mission outweighs the bad things about dating someone during an intergalactic space war. We both did. BUT you ultimately have to choose what makes you the happiest. That’s all that matters.”

Keith remembers the time him and Lance went to a space mall to pick up some much-needed supplies about eight months ago. 

 

~

 

The mall was  _ massive _ , bigger than any mall they had been to before, complete with an indoor amusement park.

Coran had requested that they pick up some power converters at a local tosche, otherwise known as the Home Depot of space. The task took a few minutes, then they realized that they had the rest of the day to hangout at the space mall. The team wasn’t expecting them to be back until after dinner.

“If we leave early, we have time to help Coran and Hunk with other engineering things in the castle.” Keith said, already heading towards the exit. 

“Wait.” Keith felt a grip on his wrist. He turned around to see Lance frowning, his blue eyes dark. “You are passing up a major opportunity.”

“Which is?” Keith scoffed.

“USING THE EXTRA TIME TO GO TO THE AMUSEMENT PARK!” Lance shouted, jumping up and punching both of his fists in the air. He was grinning ecstatically. “I haven’t been to one since I was sixteen!”

“Shouldn’t we focus on making sure our ship is operational?” Keith asked rhetorically, raising an eyebrow. How could they play around in a mall when there were much larger issues at hand? No one else could pilot the lions if there was an attack.

“So what?! Riding some roller coasters won’t stop the ship from getting fixed. How are we gonna help anyway? Are you suddenly an expert in spaceship engineering?” Lance said. “That’s why they sent  _ us _ to get stuff in the first place, cause we’re useless there otherwise.”

Keith put his hands on his hips. Lance made a good point. If they went back to the castle he would just end up in the training deck for hours. Maybe he needed to do something else for once. 

“I think I actually got through to you…” Lance’s eyes were wide. “Just say I’m right.”

“I will  _ never _ say those words.” Keith snapped back.

“Dammit! I was so close!” Lance spins away, raising a fist to the air dramatically.

“A rare occasion.” Keith said, smiling.

“But you’re smiling. That’s good.”

“Whatever.”

They made their way towards the amusement park towering in the centre of the mall. Lance suddenly stopped in his tracks. He was radiating excitement. Keith knew it was going to be something stupid.

“Look.” Lance said, pointing in the direction of a booth that was surrounded by big stuffed space animals with handles and saddles.

“What is that?” Keith asked, uninterested.

Lance was already over at the booth, reading over the sign stating the rules. Keith approached slowly.

 

5 minutes= $15 SD

10 minutes= $20 SD

15 minutes= $25 SD

 

“Those are motorized animal scooters, aren’t they?” He frowned. Apparently they would have to pay money to ride the scooters around the mall.

“Yes!” Lance jumped. “And we’re taking a quick detour before the amusement park.”

“I am  _ not _ going on one of those.”

“You’re being a party pooper!” Lance exclaimed. “Besides, I assume the only reason you don’t want to ride one is because I will beat you in the race.”

“What race?”

Lance paid the attendant with some of the money leftover from what Coran had given them, and sat atop the pink dinosaur-looking animal. “It will be a race of champions.”

Keith walked over to a pale purple horse/antelope thing and straddled it. “You really shouldn’t push me Lance, you might get hurt.” He smirked.

They pulled out of their parking spots and began slowly navigating the creatures through the crowd, getting used to the steering and speed. Keith watched Lance out of the corner of his eye. Someone would accelerate to full speed any second. Who would it be?

Keith didn’t feel like waiting anymore, and hit the gas pedal as hard as he could. The scooter took off faster than he expected, quickly leaving Lance, and he had to decide where they were going to ace to. 

The wind whipped against his face, as he dodged families of aliens, garbage pails and signs. Lance was right behind him, coming up fast.

“Cheater!” He shouted.

Keith laughed. “What, you wanted to drive these things around leisurely? Where’s the fun in that?”

He swerved quickly to nearly miss a kid running between stores. 

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Lance asked.

“Do you?” He shot back.

They were neck and neck, going dangerously fast in the crowded mall. Keith glanced over to Lance and saw him staring right back.

“Remember when we had to pilot the lions with our eyes closed?” Lance asked. He continued to stare at Keith.

_ Someone is gonna die.  _ Keith thought, never breaking eye-contact with Lance,  _ But I can’t lose this. _

Time seemed to slow down as they continued to glare at each other. Who was going to be the first to break?

Keith felt an incline, and then the traction on the ground was gone. Was he flying? He noticed Lance frown and look down, then start screaming. He looked down too and noticed they had partially taken-off and were headed directly towards a water-feature. He started screaming too, there was nothing else to do but accept their fate.

They landed in the pool with a massive splash, both scooters tipping over and dumping their riders off in the water. It was refreshingly cool, but reeked of chlorine. Keith was soaked all the way through. 

He sat up to see if Lance was okay, but only saw the wheels spinning on the scooter. He leaned over, and noticed Lance was completely unharmed, but lying facedown in the water. Lance pushed himself up fast and spit out the water he had unfortunately gulped in. There were a few pennies stuck to his forehead from the impact.

Keith wished he could have taken a picture, cause it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. He burst into laughter the same time that Lance asked, “Are you okay?!”

Lance watched him for a second, dumbstruck, then joined in, the pennies falling from his face. He fell back into the water, clutching his stomach and cackling.

~

_ He was so cute _ . Keith remembers Lance’s full-body laughter and his scrunched face. Everything they had done that day was made so much more exciting just because of Lance. He made every activity that much more fun. 

 

~

 

They had dinner in the food court later and were so overwhelmed with the amount of options they ended up getting things from almost every kiosk. Each meal was laid out on the table, two of each, and they went through all of them and discussed whether or not it was actually good and what Earth food it reminded them of. 

By the end of it, they were beyond stuffed. Lance burped at one point and almost threw up. Keith felt the same coming on for him so they ran to the bathroom and hung out in one of the stalls for a bit. 

The bathroom had at least 75 stalls to it, so no one batted an eye at the closed stall with two people sitting on the ground opposite each other. Keith watched Lance’s face go from red to green, and he was worried one of them would definitely end up puking.

“I can’t believe we ate so much we almost barfed.” Lance said.

“I have no regrets.” Keith smiled.

“No RAGRETS.” Lance added.

“I’ve heard that before but I have no idea what it’s from.” Keith admitted.

“That’s cool.” Lance said, resting his elbow on his bent knee. “I’m sure it’s considered an old reference now, anyways.” He lined up his shoe to Keith’s boot. “You’re feet are the same size as mine.”

“So?” Keith asked.

“But you’re shorter than me.” Lance mentioned.

“Okay  _ literally _ by like, an inch.” Keith rolled his eyes.

“You know what they say about big feet?” Lance winked.

“No?” He knew Lance was going to say something sexual and not funny.

“Big socks!” Lance clapped.

Keith sighed. “I don’t know if  _ that _ was more unfunny or the sexual joke I thought you were going to make.”

“Oh, you thought I was going to say I thought you had a big dick?” Lance said.

Keith turned beet red, making Lance crack up. He reached over and squeezed his cheeks. “Poor Keef is so embarrassed!”

Keith swatted his hands away and crossed his arms, Lance still hovering above him, straddled over his legs.  “Don’t call me Keef.”

“Why not? It’s so cute! Just like you!” Lance grabbed his cheeks again.

He gripped onto Lance’s wrists and pulled his hands away. Lance’s smile faded, knowing Keith was about to get serious, but he still remained close.

“You think I’m cute?”

“Of course. Like a lil stuffed animal.”

Keith pouted. “I hope the Galra don’t see me like that.”

“Nope. Only me!” Lance smiled. “And maybe our space parents, Allura and Shiro.”

“So, half the team, basically?!”

“ _ Relax _ . You’re a tough guy. Everyone else knows that.”

“Good.” Keith pursed his lips. “Galra should fear me.”

Lance laughs again. “They totally do. Don’t worry.” His eyes were twinkling.

 

~

 

Now that Keith is reflecting on this moment, it seems as if Lance had almost kissed him then.  _ How _ did he not notice that until now?

_ I was too focused on being a paladin. _

Was it possible to focus on being a paladin and enjoy a relationship with Lance?  _ If _ Lance was interested too, of course…

“Does Lance know about  _ any _ of your feelings towards him?” Shiro asks.

“Who knows?” Keith says, “I mean, we hooked up last night but I’m not sure what it means to him.”

“Probably a lot.” Shiro begins, “I don’t want to get between you guys but I know he’s talked to Hunk about this a lot. Pidge too.”

“He said I was beautiful. And cute.” Keith mentions. He was too absorbed in what was going on at the time, and didn’t remember much of what Lance had actually  _ said. _ Now, looking back, it seemed as if Lance was just as swept up in Keith as Keith was with Lance. “I need to talk to him so badly.”

Pidge is walking over, and sits on the other side of Keith, laptop still in hand. “What did I miss?”

“I’m in love with Lance.” Keith says.

“No shit.” She says. “Nice to know you’re caught up with everyone else now.”

“I  _ am not _ the last one to realize I’m in love with Lance!” Keith bangs his fist in the sand. “You guys aren’t in my mind!” 

“Good point.” She adds, “ _ Lance _ is the last one to know you’re in love with him.”

Keith frowns, exasperated. “Dammit. You’re so right.” All of these feelings were hitting him like a brick. “It’s these days off that made me realize everything. I had been ignoring them for too long.”

“Well, good thing you realized them.” Pidge smiles. “And I hope things go well between you two if you ever see each other again.”

And there was the stark realization that everything was completely screwed in this current moment. Keith sinks deeper into the sand.

“I’m sorry to be a negative nancy, but my laptop just died. Any other ideas?” Pidge eyes the both of them.

Keith squints, thinking. 

“Wait.” Pidge says, “How the hell has Red not come for Keith yet? He is clearly lost and in trouble?!”

“Good idea, Pidge!” Shiro cheers. “See if you can connect with Red, and get her to come get us!”

Keith clears his mind, trying to find the connection between him and his lion. She felt far away, but her presence was still distinguishable. Their bond was stronger than ever, especially after the last few fights that Voltron had been in. 

He felt her response, giving him a boost of energy he didn’t expect. She was on her way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you everyone for the kudos!!! so so so nice to see. 
> 
> literally HIT ME UP on instagram or tumblr because all of my irl friends don't watch voltron and i need people to talk to about it!!!! i promise im a good time!!
> 
> insta @cassssc  
> tumblr @bossybinch
> 
> alsooooooooo here's a compilation of all songs used for chapters (plus so much more!!!!!) check it out!
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/user/casschad69/playlist/0vbghGOc1KItS0KVyucs4Z


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